{ empty your hands of overheard conversations. }

So. I have sort of hit a snag with duck_cheer in that I can probably send the ducks off now, but I'm still not really sure how I want to go about it this time. Also, I have a hundred things to post to people — actual packages, not just letters/cards — and no fiscally-sound way of doing so. Am getting a bit frustrated because I wanted to be underway by now.

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It must be really exhausting to be the type of person who needs to be known to be right every time. Most of us are pleased to be right, and to know it ourselves, and every now and then we want other people to know we are right, too. But can you imagine being that person who not only has to be right all the time, but has to make sure everyone knows it? Every time? Exhausting!

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Fandom! Outcasts started this week, and so far so good. They've really made user of South Africa's terrain and beautiful skies, and the cast is more than watchable. I'm really enjoying Fleur — I can't remember the actress' name, but she has been consistently excellent in everything I have seen her in since her turn in Being Human last year. I feel like Hermione Norris, whom I adore, had fallen into something of a trap because Stella so far is Ros in Space with Tearducts, and I don't think she's a great fit for the character. Early days yet, so hopefully that will change. Loved Jamie Bamber, and was pleased to see that he had become versatile enough to shrug off Lee Adama and Matt to play this character.

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Being Human continues to be endearing fare. I love Nina so much, and the way they write her and George is lovely. I hope that Annie and Mitchell get as much care. I'm looking forward to seeing more of Robson Green next week, and am ready for some arc work. Come on! Let's get going! Enough grandstanding.

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Started watching The Killing/Forbrydelsen at the weekend, which is a Danish series that is currently airing on BBC4. Each episode follows a day in a murder investigation. It is child drama, the way Touching Evil was, gritty, serious, and excellent. Am enough it immensely, and hoping to be caught up by the time the next two episodes air on Saturday.

Diametrically opposite that is Glee, which I seem to have been dragged back into. Our rather, lured into by Naya Rivera's lovely everything. Am trying to be cool about my level of obsession, but I fear tumblr is giving me away. The latest episode was just… Kurt and his prep school boyfriend! Rachel having friends! EVERYTHING ABOUT SANTANA! I-- no, really, it is great. (Cory who? Shut up.)

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Quasi-relatedly, have started my picfor1000 entry. As ever, it is not what I thought I would be writing. Hope to get it done this weekend.

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I have been out a couple of times this week, too. I know, it's all go here. On Friday, xanitia went bowling, and then out to eat. Oh god, I have never bowled so badly in my life. Pretty certain it's because the balls I used were too heavy, but the fucks kept rolling into the gutter. Then we attempted to play pool, and realised we couldn't remember the basic rules. xanitia kept potting the white, and I kept missing, and it was chaos. After eating we drove up the A1, then veered off into Lincolnshire/Northamptonshire to find a village we had failed to find on previous occasions. I-- I don't know. It's tradition! Our something. Fun was had.

Then, Tuesday night I met up with another school friend, and we ended up seeing Hereafter which was terrible, but which also had a really lovely performance by this kid that stole everything. I recommend not going to see it. Awful.

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Work is pretty busy right now, mostly because I have pulled about 50 closed client cases that I need to scan to the system, and a report that I check every week has failed to run properly since January, so I feel like I'm running to stand still at the moment. My co-admin has a fortnight's leave coming up from Monday, then I have another trip to London, and then it's the pension-bump care reassessments, and at some point we have to move out of our office so they can fix the environmental systems, and there are basically a hundred things to do, and no job security. Fun.

Am currently on the bus, of course. The village bus was late today so I missed the first train, so am now in A14 traffic, on the second bus. But I have re-adapted to my situation since my new year freakout, especially now that there trends to be dawn light when I leave the house. Am not freaking out about it so much, and I don't hate it in the office like I did in December. Doing better.

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Long entry is long. Apologies.

{ Hu Ming-Xiang: The Watermelon. }

The Watermelon
by Hu Ming-Xiang

All through the Spring it grew
Secretly, staying close to the ground.
Today you carved it open
Ate the red flesh, spat out the seeds.

{ Stacie Cassarino: Summer Solstice. }

Summer Solstice
by Stacie Cassarino

I wanted to see where beauty comes from
without you in the world, hauling my heart
across sixty acres of northeast meadow,
my pockets filling with flowers.
Then I remembered,
it’s you I miss in the brightness
and body of every living name:
rattlebox, yarrow, wild vetch.
You are the green wonder of June,
root and quasar, the thirst for salt.
When I finally understand that people fail
at love, what is left but cinquefoil, thistle,
the paper wings of the dragonfly
aeroplaning the soul with a sudden blue hilarity?
If I get the story right, desire is continuous,
equatorial. There is still so much
I want to know: what you believe
can never be removed from us,
what you dreamed on Walnut Street
in the unanswerable dark of your childhood,
learning pleasure on your own.
Tell me our story: are we impetuous,
are we kind to each other, do we surrender
to what the mind cannot think past?
Where is the evidence I will learn
to be good at loving?
The black dog orbits the horseshoe pond
for treefrogs in their plangent emergencies.
There are violet hills,
there is the covenant of duskbirds.
The moon comes over the mountain
like a big peach, and I want to tell you
what I couldn’t say the night we rushed
North, how I love the seriousness of your fingers
and the way you go into yourself,
calling my half-name like a secret.
I stand between taproot and treespire.
Here is the compass rose
to help me live through this.
Here are twelve ways of knowing
what blooms even in the blindness
of such longing. Yellow oxeye,
viper’s bugloss with its set of pink arms
pleading do not forget me.
We hunger for eloquence.
We measure the isopleths.
I am visiting my life with reckless plenitude.
The air is fragrant with tiny strawberries.
Fireflies turn on their electric wills:
an effulgence. Let me come back
whole, let me remember how to touch you
before it is too late.