Soggy Saturday

The weather outside is pretty shitty in my corner of Connecticut, so I have decided to stay inside, and skip the gym.

The first two issues of my new subscription to Sky and Telescope showed up and there are some interesting articles on the new Mega telescopes being proposed. One with an astonishing 42 meter mirror! I imagine with a machine of that size cosmologists will move from counting stars to combing them out of the beard of God.

As for me, since the stars are destined to be invisible tonight, I am going to do a little laundry, a little reading, maybe a little writing. I may crank up the Victrola in the dining room. I’ve left two steaks on the counter to thaw, and I have two large celery roots in the fridge, aching to be boiled and turned into celery root mashed potatoes. And then, there is also that bottle of sake that I bought on my way home from Grand Central which needs finishing. I must attend to THAT.

In case you were wondering, I put out the second steak out for you. On a rainy day, feeling a bit cut off from humanity, one is apt to grow a little melancholy. A little lonely.

That's why I'm glad we're going to have dinner.

Until then, in honor of skies and telescopes, here is a little Auden...

The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.