... a devastating dream over the weekend that our baby, who has long passed, was full of ticks (although in the dream, bizarrely, they appeared as tiny winged creatures; something akin to flying ants). i stood him in a bowl of water, with his head exposed, and the insects began to climb out over the bowl, onto me..

he stood there, calmly, waiting for it all to pass -- exactly the opposite of anything he would have done in reality

i awoke in a panic, googled instructions for removing ticks, and minutes later, dreamt that i told you all about this

how can i explain the feeling that i'm gone from your life.. that you don't know it, perhaps, but i do

between a devastating BBC report on Syrian refugees in Turkey and the horror i read this morning--

Nicholas Schmidle: Are Kosovo’s Leaders Guilty of War Crimes? : The New Yorker

--it's hard to imagine how our lives go on

i'm not sure how to explain my reluctance to see argo. perhaps my problem has to do with timing..
filmmakers are not politicians, of course, and the movie had been in production for some time--but i can't get past the unpleasant feeling that its release capitalizes on and possibly worsens an already terrible situation

almost every night, now, i dream of you..
the dreams are as painful as the waking

as discussed with like-minded friends yesterday: sensationalizing the death and capture of the boston bombing suspects is a disgraceful failure of media

as f pointed out: the question we should be asking is why, after so many years, these kids failed to feel even remotely at home

what is there to be proud of here?

I have difficulty estimating time, space, and distance--basically, anything that's numerically quantifiable

sensing a big problem....

as usual, winter has returned for one more practical joke.

f's phrase of the month

commercial: Ryan Gosling is electric...
f: he can't be electric. at most he can be a fluorescent light

В одном, в одном я только виновата,
Что нету сил тебя забыть

---

the fault is mine, and only mine
that i don't have the strength to forget you

f's phrase of the week:

for me, cupcakes are like yoga--i don't know why they're popular

Confession is an act of violence against the unoffending.
-- tom stoppard, The Invention of Love

it's been 5 years since i read it, but even now stoppard evokes a shocking intensity of grief

!سال نو مبارک

my darlings,

wishing you all health, happiness, and peace in the new year

sending all my love, always

photo by f, haft-sin by p

как я люблю глубину твоих ласковых глаз,
как я хочу к ним прижаться сейчас губами

this disturbing article in the new yorker on whether or not it's "right" to imprison people--in this case, possible child molesters--for crimes they have not yet committed disturbs on a very visceral level. i can see no justification whatsoever..

exactly

دل نگران . [ دِ ن ِ گ َ ] (ص مرکب ) مضطرب پریشان حواس . که ترسد و نداند چون شود از نیک و بد. (یادداشت مرحوم دهخدا). چشم براه .منتظر. (ناظم الاطباء). مشوش سخت منتظر

a dream that i was suddenly homeless

i wandered down yonge street in the cold and passed a group of people who appeared to have come from a shelter. they had cups of soup.. bundles of clothing. i thought to myself that i will need this soon, although i wasn't yet hungry.. and i couldn't bring myself to ask... to accept the situation

i was on a bike, riding toward the guardrail, thinking how flimsy it was, and full of holes, and covered in snow... how anyone could just fall right off the overpass if they weren't careful

i lost control and understood.. acknowledged that there was nothing i could do...

it's quite beautiful that a simple apostrophe can make the difference between single and multiple..

update: thanks to f for reminding me:

f's phrases of the month

"necessarily, yesessarily, nocessarily"

--

"Mr noodle, a.k.a happy soup"

"something wicked this way comes"

a.k.a. the approaching subway train
a.k.a. a random ticking sound in a long-distance phone call