Second Thoughts

You know how, yesterday, I apologized for my little parody of Homer from the week before? Can I take the apology back?

I had some second thoughts about it last night, when I was on the rowing machine at the gym, listening to Styx--Come sail away! I just can't let sleeping dogs lie.

I started tinkering with it again on the 8:07 pm train back to CT, and I was still hammering away at it on the sofa last night, about 12:30 am, when I finally dragged myself to bed for some very agitated slumber.

I think I may have come up with something at least passable, if not poetical.

Legacy

“But now the suitors trooped in with all their swagger
And took their seats on low and high backed chairs.”

—Homer, The Odyssey, I.169-170., tr. Robert Fagles



Since one should never grant Reality
Jurisdiction over human life,
I’ve been rewriting Homer’s Odyssey—
Pretending I’m Ulysses. You’re my wife
In this new version, my Penelope.
I come—exhausted—from the arms of strife:
I’ve just spent seven years inside a cave,
The plaything of Calypso. A love slave

Is not the life for me. Though divine,
Love making’s rather hard upon the knees
When you’re my age. And men must watch their wine
If working with large machinery. Please,
Penelope, be patient. I’ll be fine.
A lifetime of adventures on rough seas
Can leave a sailor—no—I won’t say limp—
But—for seven years I lived on shrimp,

Oysters, clams, and Lobster Thermidor—
Foods rich in zinc—a bitter chemical.
I don’t know what the oysters use it for;
I merely note that zinc’s available
In several things I don’t eat anymore.
Calypso used it for cholesterol:
She liked to think of me as her dessert
And careful preparation couldn’t hurt.

Calypso’s kitchen—her exotic flair
With spices, strange devices, and romance—
Left me, most mornings, paralyzed, I fear.
I don’t think love stood much of a chance
Between us. No. Nymphs do not declare
Affection for a pair of underpants
Kept folded in a drawer for twenty years.
And Nymphs do not dissolve, like salt, in tears.

Come here, Penelope. Have some champagne.
This crystal’s a great improvement on the shoe
I used to drink from. I am so ashamed.
The things that cruel Calypso made me do—
Every word she uttered was profane.
She was a scorpion, compared to you,
My dear—Penelope—my darling wife.
I’m lucky I escaped her with my life.

Penelope, I’ve something to discuss.
I have been thinking of retirement—
Abandoning the hot, Homeric fuss
For an existence less—well—violent:
To be a janitor, to drive a bus—
Pay taxes, and the butcher, and the rent!
Shall I say, “Sayonara,” to the port,
And take up bowling, or some other sport?

I know a few objections might be raised.
Your husband may show up in Babylon,
In jokes, immortalized as the milkmaid
Who is discovered in a leather thong
Behind a big bull, spying. I have prayed
For guidance from the gods—prayed hard and long—
And Heaven has been silent. I am still
Ulysses—king of Ithaca. I will

Not live forever. Yes, much earlier,
We should have had this little conversation.
In retrospect, too much may be too clear
To men involved in the affairs of any nation…
Wasn’t Telemachus’s hair much curlier,
And lighter, when I left? He’s changed. Our son.
Not only taller. He smiles like a stone.
How does he handle sitting on my throne?

Would you consider the lad self-reliant?
Do dingy diplomats command his ear?
“Son, listen, nobody could blind a giant—
A brute like Polyphemus—with a spear—
Forget a charred broomstick. All the science
Indicates he’d die.” I want to hear
About our boy, dear. Tell me, did he sigh
With satisfaction when he learnt I didn’t die?

He has this distant look which bothers me:
As if his dad were a museum piece—
An amphora—a piece of pottery
Dredged up from somewhere after centuries.
Does he realize he’s won the lottery?
I am Ulysses—not some fool with fleas
You try to pity, briefly, till the smells
Begin to catch up with your nostrils.

Perhaps we should have named the child Mike...
Are you certain that he belongs to us?
When I left Ithaca, he was a tyke—
So tiny. You raised him yourself. I trust
Your judgment, dear—your motherly insight.
Would he object to being devious
In a world where honest men cannot be found?
Please tell me that he walks on solid ground.

I want to know what kind of man he is,
Penelope, because, when we are dead,
This palace—and our people—will be his;
Us, this antique furniture—the bed
Where you received a young man with a kiss
That shook the stars—or so the servants said—
Might easily be tossed into the fire
And not be missed. And I would be a liar

If I said otherwise. Penelope—
I’m old. I’m tired. I’m dying for a bath.
I’d settle for a pot in which to pee.
Penelope, downstairs, they’ll hear you laugh!
You haven’t changed. You’re still my Queen, I see.
I never doubted you. But when I asked
About Telemachus your face turned white—
As if you’d seen a ghost. He’ll be alright.

Though in the banquet hall, as we speak, great
Cups of wine are being passed around,
As fifty pairs of lips prepare to break
Fresh bread together. I can hear the sound
As fifty greedy mouths agree to take
Turns with you, my dear, Ithaca’s crown.
For twenty years, they’ve gorged themselves at will:
Tomorrow I present them with the bill.

I didn’t travel all the way from Troy
To just roll over, like a dog, and die.
I won’t let any harm come to our boy—
But I must go. Help me to untie
This bundle. No, the gods do not destroy
These parasites. Telemachus and I
Do that. Now, let me borrow an old sheet:
It’s cold out there. I need to get some sleep.

Pieridum Vates

One couplet I shall always remember from my desultory days of studying Latin is this, a comment directed from an exasperated Ovid to Cupid, from Amores, book I:

'Quis tibi, saeve puer, dedit hoc in carmina iuris?
Pieridum vates, non tua turba sumus..."

Which may be (very) loosely translated thus:

'Cruel boy, who put you in charge of poetry?
We are the Muses's men, not in your crowd...'

The reason I recall it now. A variation on Ovid's 'Pieridum', (a crystalline spring flowing through a mild valley in Macedonia once regarded by the Greeks as sacred to the Muse) was mentioned in the poem I was reading this morning on the display screen of my cellphone, between Stamford Station and Mamaroneck: Pope Alexander's Essay on Criticism:

A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:
There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again..

I guess I have a hangover from the injustice I did to Homer in the piece I published last week, where I pretend to be Ulysses, and I invite you, dear reader, to participate in the whole feckless farce as my partner in crime, my faithful Penelope.

In an effort to placate Apollo, and the other angry, ambient powers of Creation who may be lurking in the shadows, interrupting my sleep, I would like add something to my blog a bit more circumspect in scope, a little less ambitious in effort.

Please accept my apologies Parnassus.

The Poet

The language that he used was plain,
As undistinguished as his face,
He mumbled in a monotone,
And, now and then, he lost his place.

Largely, he talked about himself,
As people do. I understand
His views on Life extended from
A callus on his writing hand.

The critics charged, “This garbage lacks
All pretense of Poetry—
Insisting words evoke no worlds,
They shed no light...” One could see

His powers were quite limited.
He evidently had bad eyes:
The sad result of too much sex
On sandy beaches at sunrise.

The Thief

This morning I woke up with a chill at 6:43am, the covers dumped in a colossal blue heap on the floor, and a slight headache: the victim of an all too vigorous dream, I suspect.

Whether it was a bad dream, or a good one, I cannot say, since I am terrible at interpreting symbols.

It did leave me with an idea for a poem though. So, I suppose, I should be grateful to Heaven for that...

The Thief

On nights like these—
So dark, so cold—
Are fires lit
And stories told,

While in my bed
My lover sleeps.
And I wake up
With icy feet.

A cough, a twitch,
Then all is still;
And one is left
To contend with a chill:

To wonder if
Humanity,
As cold as he,
Might turn to steal

My comforter
To make itself
More comfortable.
It’s possible.

Signs and Wonders

Quite a celestial day, Wednesday, wasn't it?


First, in the morning, the Space Shuttle Atlantis kisses the International Space Station goodbye and glides to gentle landing in Florida. Then, there is an eclipse of the Moon visible from the kingdom of Connecticut (as photographed, by Wild Bill, and posted at the right.) Then, as the delicious maraschino adorning this collection of events, the US Navy blows up a demented, earthbound satellite, somewhere over the pacific.



Just another day in the Life of these United States? Or something more sinister? We distort, you decide.

...


While I was reading on the 8:39 express this morning, Mathematics for the Non-Mathematician, by Morris Kline, expecting to take a holiday from politics, and history, I came across the following passage, and I was flabbergasted:


Fears, dread, and superstitions have been eliminated, at least in our Western civilization, by just those intellectually curious people who have studied nature's mighty displays. Those "seemingly unprofitable amusements of speculative brains" have freed us from serfdom, given us undreamed of powers, and, in fact, have replaced negative doctrines by positive mathematical laws which reveal a remarkable order and uniformity in nature. Man has emerged as the proud possessor of knowledge which has enabled him to view nature calmly and objectively. An eclipse of the sun occurring on schedule is no longer an occassion for trembling but for quiet satisfaction that we know nature's ways.We breathe freely knowing that nature will not be willful or capricious.


Professor Kline taught at NYU in the late 1960s. What professor today would dare to write a textbook so brimming with confidence or pride in the technical and spiritual accomplishments of Western Civilization? Even a math book?

Where Angels Fear to Tread

While it was not my intention to appear as a complete fool, at least publicly, I have a feeling that the premature publication of "Canto I" may have created that impression. However correct your estimate of my idiocy may be, I wish to apologize to Homer--and to Humanity--for that poem.

After 20 years of writing, I really should know better than to run off like a maniac and publish early. I spent the weekend recosidering my version of Ulysses and re-reading the Odyssey (Fagles translation). I have no idea what I was thinking. A classic case of hubris. Oh, well...

There may be a few salvagable lines of text. I am going to put the whole thing into a drawer somewhere and forget about it for a few weeks, while I finish reading the Odyssey and begin working my way through my new math book. There is nothing like a little trigonometry to settle a jangled set of nerves.

...

On a happier note, the crew of Atlantis has arrived safely back on earth, after a 12 day mission at the International Space Station. Thank Heaven for answered prayers.

Mutatis Mutandis

I continue making changes to my little poem, and adding stanzas, playing with images, having fun. I am glad the poem is still in the fun stage of development. Having fun is usually the briefest period of composition.

I have tried to take the edge off the ego, somewhat, and I am begining to feel my way more affectionately toward the characters. I have tried to hint that Ulysses initial crudeness at the beginning is the result of captivity with Calypso--trauma--not any contempt he has for Penelope. I am not sure if this comes across. There are plenty of details to come.

I really have to pick up a copy for Fagles's translation of the Odyssey and read it again. It has been a few years since I read it last and my memory of events is a little fuzzy. Anyway, here are today's changes...

Canto I


Now, as a respite from Reality,
The humdrum horrors one might call a Life,
I shall return to the fictitious me—
Like old Ulysses. Won’t you be my wife,
Dear reader, patient, like Penelope?
I come—exhausted—from the arms of strife:
I’ve just spent seven years inside a cave,
The plaything of Calypso. A love slave

Is not the life for me. At 59,
Making love is too hard on the knees,
And you must monitor intake of wine,
If you are going to perform. Please,
Penelope, leave that alone. I’m fine.
Please realize great adventures on the seas
Can leave a sailor—well—I won’t say limp—
But—for seven years I lived on shrimp,

Raw oysters, clams, and Lobster Thermidor—
Foods rich in zinc—a common chemical.
I do not know what oysters use it for—
I’ll merely mention it’s available
In pills, at the General Nutrition Store.
Calypso used it for cholesterol.
She liked to think of men as her dessert—
And careful preparations never hurt.

Calypso’s kitchen—her exotic flair
For honey and hot wax—had its romance,
But lust will form a crust in one’s chest chair.
I’m not sure love stood much of a chance
Between us. No. Nymphs do not declare
Affection for a pair of underpants,
Like these, I haven’t worn for twenty years.
You have stained my skivvies with your tears.

Don’t cry, Penelope. Have some champagne.
This glass is a great improvement on the shoe
I used to drink from. I am so ashamed.
The things that cruel Calypso made me do—
Every word she uttered was profane.
She was like garbage, when compared to you,
My dear—Penelope—my darling wife.
I’m lucky I escaped her with my life.

Penelope, I’ve something to discuss.
I have been thinking of retirement—
Abandoning the huge, Homeric fuss
For something less—violent. I’d be content
To be a school custodian, drive a bus,
Pay taxes, pay the butcher, pay the rent.
Shall I say, “Sayonara,” to the port,
And to my men—though in some Eastern court

A eunuch’s eyebrow is bound to be raised?
You may be mocked in Athens. And in song,
I’ll be immortalized as the milkmaid
Who is discovered in a leather thong
Behind a big bull, spying. I have prayed
For guidance from the gods—prayed hard and long,
And Heaven has been silent. I am still
Ulysses—king of Ithaca. I will

Not live forever. Yes, much earlier,
We should have had this little conversation.
In retrospect, too much may be too clear
To men involved in the affairs of any nation…
Wasn’t Telemachus’s hair much curlier,
And lighter, when I left? He’s changed. Our son.
Not only taller. He smiles like a stone.
How will he handle sitting on my throne?

Would you consider him self-reliant?
Do dingy diplomats command his ear?
“Son, nobody could blind a giant
Like Polyphemus with a proper spear—
Let alone a broomstick. Son, the science
Here is clear: men die.” I want to hear.
I want to know. I had hoped for a sigh
Of satisfaction when he learnt I didn’t die.

Yet, all he seems to do is look at me
As if I were a large museum piece—
An amphora—a piece of pottery
Dredged up from somewhere after centuries.
He studies me with curiosity:
Not as his father—but a man with fleas
You try to pity, briefly, till his smell
Begins to catch up with your nostril.

Calypso and Company

The elation I experienced on Monday, during the first flush of creation, has abated somewhat, as it always does, a few seconds after I embark on something new.

Nevertheless, I managed to put together a few more stanzas today, and attempted to tighten a the other stanzas I published so prematurely.

If the Muses were a bit more reliable, in terms of inspiration, I might consider trying to wring one or two stanzas per day out of them, and putting the poem together as sort of serial, or an extended comic strip. But never fear. The idea of producing 730 stanzas of ottava rima, per year, or 5840 lines of verse, while attractive, hypothetically, would probably kill me in a week. Not to mention how unfair it would be to my indulgent readers, who would have to suffer through a dose of perverted verse every day, when all they really want to hear about are the antics of the squirrels in our back yard, my trips to Texas, art gallery openings, or how much I managed to squat on Saturday.

As it happened, last Saturday, it was 270lbs. And this weekend I am going for 325. Which is not bad for a guy who is 5'6" and weighs, 155 lbs.

Anyway, here's the poem so far...(annotated links to be provided later...)

Canto I



Now, as a respite from Reality,
The humdrum horrors your might call your Life,
I return to my favorite subject—me—
Like old Ulysses. Won’t you be my wife,
Dear reader, patient, like Penelope?
I come—exhausted—from the arms of strife:
I’ve just spent seven years inside a cave,
The plaything of Calypso. A love slave

Is not the life for me. At 59,
Making love is too hard on the knees,
And you must monitor intake of wine,
If you are going to perform. Oh please,
Penelope, leave that alone! It’s fine.
It’s just that great adventures on the seas
Can leave a sailor—well—I won’t say limp—
But—for seven years I lived on shrimp

Toes, oysters, and Lobster Thermidor—
Foods rich in zinc. A funny chemical.
I’ve no idea what women use it for—
I’ll merely mention it’s available
In pills, at the General Nutrition Store.
Men use it to control cholesterol.
We think of you as ice cream—our desserts—
And careful preparation never hurts.

Calypso’s kitchen—her exotic flair
For honey and hot wax had its romance,
But lust will form a crust in your chest chair.
I’m not sure love stood much of a chance
Between us. No. Nymphs do not declare
Affection for a pair of underpants,
Like these, I haven’t worn for twenty years.
You have stained my skivvies with your tears.

Don’t cry, Penelope. Have some champagne.
Glass is a great improvement on a shoe—
Those crystal slippers that she wore. Insane.
The things that cruel Calypso made me do—
They put the P into the word Profane.
She was like Lucifer, compared to you,
Dear reader—my Penelope—my wife.
I’m lucky I escaped her with my life.

I’m here because I’ve something to discuss.
I have been thinking about retirement—
Abandoning the huge, Homeric fuss
For something more—Platonic. Well, I meant
To mention this before I left. The bus
Was coming, and unfortunately, I couldn’t.
I had a ship to catch down in the port,
Men to command. In Agamemnon’s court

Great hairy eyebrows would have been upraised
If I had slunk in, in the middle of song,
Dressed in the chiton of a dairy maid,
And tried to change into a leather thong
Behind a pot. Besides, I think I made
My bed. And being gone from you so long
Wasn’t my idea—but God’s unfathomable will.
I am Ulysses—king of Ithaca! Still,

I might have set the cock for earlier
And skipped the speeches for some conversation.
In retrospect, too much may be too clear
To men consumed in the affairs of any nation…
Wasn’t Telemachus’s hair much curlier,
And lighter, when I left? He’s changed. Our son.
Not only taller. He smiles like a stone.
How does he handle sitting in my throne?

Eureka!

Excuse my elation, but I am very excited this afternoon.


For many months, I have been trying to get a start on an epic poem, and I might have stumbled into something I can finally use this morning on the train. I must have written a hundred practice stanzas to get to these 16 lines. It is all very preliminary, and it is probably tremendously premature of me to post it here now, but I just got that dorsal tingle indicating that there might be an idea here that I can run with...

We shall see...

Chapter 1

Now, after that foray in fantasy,
I have entitled Preface to a Life,
I return to my favorite subject—me.
I am Ulysses now. And you’re my wife,
Dear reader, my patient Penelope.
Don’t let my wanderings be a source of strife:
I spent seven years tied up in a cave,
Being tickled by Calypso. A love slave

Is not easy to be. At 39,
It is especially hard on a man’s knees.
And you must monitor intake of wine,
If you are going to perform. Please,
Don’t bother doing that, my dear. I’m fine.
It’s just that twenty years on the high seas
Can leave a sailor—well—I won’t say limp—
But—for seven years I lived on shrimp...

And then there are these lines I wrote after lunch...

Oysters, and Lobster Thermidor,
A diet richer in cholesterol.
You are still the gorgeous girl-next-door
I married twenty years ago, last fall.
You are a dish all Ithacans adore—
A pink parfait—though maybe not so tall.
I’ve always thought of you as a dessert.
You make the roots of my back molars hurt.

Calypso, and her kind cannot compare…

And here is a completely reworked first draft, plus a couple of stanzas I put together on the 8:07 Express. I will annotate it with suitable links later. What a profitable day! And now I am off to bed!


Chapter 1


Now, after the foray in fantasy,
I have entitled Preface to a Life,
I return to my favorite subject—me—
Like old Ulysses. Won’t you be my wife,
Dear reader, my patient Penelope?
My story shouldn’t cause us any strife:
I spend seven years inside a cave,
Being tickled by Calypso. A love slave

Is not easy to be. At 49,
Love is especially hard on a man’s knees.
And you must monitor intake of wine,
If you are going to perform. Please,
Don’t bother doing that, my dear. I’m fine.
It’s just that twenty years on the high seas
Can leave a sailor—well—I won’t say limp—
But…for seven years I lived on shrimp,

And oyster stew, and Lobster Thermidor—
Things rich in zinc. Yes, and cholesterol.
I see you’re still the gorgeous girl-next-door
I married thirty years ago, next fall.
You are a dish kids everywhere adore—
My maraschino cherry—sweet, and small.
I’ve always thought of you as a dessert.
You make the roots of my back molars hurt.

Calypso and her kind—exotic fare—
Those parasitic ladies who will dance
In vaporous veils, and fling their silky hair
Around in circles do not stand a chance
Against my girl. You simply don’t compare
In eagerness to enter underpants—
Even ones unwashed for twenty years.
You don’t mind if I finish these two beers?

Calypso tickled me with iced champagne:
She poured it in my mouth from an old shoe—
A slipper, I mean. Made of glass. Profane
That girl was. Yes. And barely twenty-two.
Devilish thoughts resided in her brain.
She was as black to white, compared to you,
My dear Penelope. My wedded wife.
I’m lucky I escaped her with my life.

Sunday Morning

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice...

Well, anyway, that was Wallace Stevens's idea of a Sunday Morning, in 1915, in Key West.

93 years later, in February, in Connecticut, things look a bit different. Gone is the holy hush, replaced by WQXR predicting rain and snow showers for later this evening. There may be coffee and oranges, but for the life of me I cannot find the cockatoo. Clearly, there is a carpet, but the bird is missing. Perhaps he was eaten by the cat. She certainly has a guilty look around her whiskers. Perhaps, in a cantankerous mood, she decided to poop on the powder room floor. It is hard to tell with her: she is an inscrutable creature.

At any rate, upon the back of a leathery old ottoman sits an atlas of the stars, open to page 53, wherein the author distinguishes, for the curious reader, how the signs of the zodiac appear along the plane of the ecliptic.

The book is entitled, Nightwatch: A Practical Guide for Viewing the Universe, and it comes to us courtesy of the Ferguson Library in Stamford. I stopped there yesterday afternoon on my way back from the gym in the city. Usually, on Saturdays, I like to stop at the library, pick up a movie or two, or something new to read. I tried to find the adjacent book, too, but the section on mathematics at Ferguson is a bit weak.

...

I am inching a bit closer to making that telescope purchase I mentioned earlier this week. I think I may wait for the warmer weather to do it. For the rest of the winter, I am going to try to spend as many clear nights out in the backyard as possible, reacquainting myself with the Heavens. I used to be able to identify about 15 constellations, but these days...

I can still find the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, Orion, Cassiopeia, the Teapot, Gemini, the Pleiades (a star cluster), and Hercules, but I have lost sight of the rest. I am better with the planets, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter I can still discern on a clear night, with almost no trouble.

Now, however, I must swab the kitchen floor. And then I must fold some laundry and conjugate a dozen or so Japanese verbs. So, I am off.

Have a nice day!

S and T

This morning, lounging again in my golden kimono, sipping my second cup of coffee, in front of my computer, I took the fateful step of subscribing to Sky and Telescope. I subscribed to it once before, in my teens, when I was a member of the Astronomy Book Club and attempting to teach myself calculus so I could understand Black Holes, White Dwarfs, and Neutron Stars: The Physics of Compact Objects.

I say fateful--not because I am afraid of encountering the back end of a bird when I am looking up, looking backwards into time. I say fateful because, ever since September 11th, 2001, little by little, I have been remembering, or trying to remember things I have not thought about in a long time.

Before that day, things which seemed so vital to me once, had lost some of their life--Ovid's Metamorphoses, Astronomy, Laurel and Hardy, falling in Love. We drift away from so much over time. Or we find coarse or convenient substitutes for the things we once loved, for one reason or another: changing tastes, changing faces, lack of time. Suddenly these much neglected pieces of my past were important to me again.

There is one line of Auden's famous poem, September 1st, 1939, which has been echoing in my head recently:

Defenceless under the night

Our world in stupor lies;

Yet, dotted everywhere,

Ironic points of light

Flash out wherever the Just

Exchange their messages...

In the context of the poem, of course, which takes place in a seedy bar on 52nd Street in New York City, these ironic points of light are cigarette butts smoldering in the dark. But as an isolated stanza, we might very well perceive these pointed words as stars.

And if we are to orient ourselves toward the future we must first understand where we stand in relation to these celestial objects and the ancient light they shed on us today.

Naturally, I missed it....

Here I am all ready to watch Atlantis lift off LIVE (something I haven't done since I watched John Young and Bob Crippen on the first Space Shuttle flight, when I was 13, in 1981) and I wind up photocopying a recent decision from the Appellate Division 1st Department from the New York Law Journal, when the whole spectacular thing happens.

I will have to catch STS-122 on NASA TV when I get home after the gym tonight. It is never as exciting, though, to watch a shuttle launch after the fact. It is a bit like watching a recorded football game. Interesting, yes, but somehow slightly lacking in goosepimples.

I am thinking I might need to get one of these to keep an eye on the comings and going of Mankind in the evenings. I have noticed that there is a whole universe visible above the orange city lights of Stamford, Connecticut. Who'd have thought that such a thing was possible in New England?

I know I never did. That is, until I got out of the car one night and idly looked down at the light on the ground. And then I looked up. (Click below.)

Gentlemen, start your engines...

Book done, back from Houston, and all caught up on work, I find myself able to blog again, and to breathe.


Houston was wonderful. Warm, huge, and friendly. Apart from the cabbies, who had no idea where they were going most of the time, and when presented with a Mapquest map (by the friendly folks at the Hotel ZaZa) were not quite able to read it sufficiently to travel even a few short blocks.


I was only in the city two days, so my chance to sample the city's culture was limited mostly to migas and visits to two excellent musuems--the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and the Menil Collection--and an afternoon at the Johnson Space Center--which brought back all sorts of starry-eyed memories from childhood, when I was scheduled to be an astronaut. Perhaps, if I had stuck with astrophysics in college I would be busy up there, right now.

No life is without regrets. And none lacks its consolations. If I were orbiting the Earth, for instance, I might never have bumped into you.

...

Even so, as we stare at the stars tonight, whatever our choices, or beliefs, let us remember the folks on STS-122, as they begin a new voyage tomorrow.



Safe journey.