Two weeks and it will be the Equinox. Fantastic word, isn't it, equinox? I like words which manage to have a q and an x in them. Quixotical little words, worthy of our admiration. Love, even. Aren't they? I might like to start a wee collection of them, right here on this post. Donations gratefully accepted.
That's not what I had in mind to say at all, though, you'll be relieved to hear. I was, instead, intending to blether on about the fact that the sun and, hence, light are definitely returning. My balcony is winning the battle against the snow (incredibly, we can actually sit on the chair again). The day has been absolutely beautiful - sunshine, real, proper, warming sunshine, I can't remember when the last time was (possibly September), all day long, blue sky, the great-tits doing their spring ti-ti-tyy thing (it's what they say, right), the light making blazing colour displays of the snow (which most certainly is not white).
I know all this because I've visited my balcony several times today (okay, I did take the dog out for a pee earlier, too), opting, instead of walking outdoors with my face turned towards the sun all day like every other Helsinki-ite with legs, for knitting, watching TV, reading various articles on the Guardian online, other online blips, even writing a bit. So? It's my birthright not to go out and enjoy anything, I'm telling you that for free.
There has been so much snow this year. Three months and as many metres, I kid you not. I may exaggerate a bit, a tiny bit, in the metric number, however, but it's not a hanging offence. Snow in all its original, ur-snow form - white, always, even downtown (where the nouveau post-modern snow is more often than not an interesting and very specific hue of brown, if it's in its snow incarnation, or grey, if its slush. Shut up), because there's been new snow added so often it just hasn't had time to turn any other colour (except for light reasons, as I mentioned above), coating branches of trees with crystal fingers, cars with undiggable-off fur hats, carving the Himalayas along the sides of footpaths and pavements (often enclosing some cars which got rather more fur hat than they might have bargained for - or their drivers, either, for that matter). Icicles like glass skulls of aliens, long-tusked. So much snow for so long it's almost been like my childhood. So much snow for so long it is utterly unbelievable anything living should ever appear ever again.
It might, of course, not. It remains to be seen. 
Sunday, March 07, 2010
September may very well be reminding July*, but what's that November is whispering to March?
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8 comments:
hang on a minute there - what the - well first things first, there is a catholic church in quex road in kilburn - first marriage happened there - does that count? quex is a word that means "a tool to generate lexical analyzers" - there, bet you're grateful for that.
Back to using caps again now, a change is as good as a rest, is what I always say. Is that a view from your igloo there? Proof, as if we needed, of much snow. And here in Blighty we are still banging on about the amount we had, but it's been all gone for ages now.
Good to see you here - though the label does also suggest that you are saying goodbye - and what with Tom Waits echoing the words (or you echoing him). Goodbye to winter, perhaps?
The living things do and will appear again. Can't prove it, just as I can't prove that the sun will rise again tomorrow. But probability is definitely on my side, Schwestah. Har!
Squeezebox
Why am I the only one left out, and whaddya mean I had my chance?
Signs, Insignia, Seignsmeister, in a word, Schwesserwisser - you're right. I am grateful for that, fairly beyond description, because to tell you the truth, I had my qualms and quibbles (sadly, with no x) about the mere existence of a Quex Road in Kilburn (whether you married in the Catholic church there or not), let alone the definition for the word which you quote. Imagine the waves of delight, then (which quite rightly were laced with shame for doubting your words), which I have just had the pleasure to enjoy, having googled the beautiful "quex" and discovered it is indeed exactly what you claim it to be (although I haven't found the road yet - I should go to google streetmaps, no doubt). Moreover, I have discovered to my edification that a lexical analyser (sorry, I cannot abide the American z) "...is a program that transforms a stream of characters into a stream of 'atomic chunks of meaning'...".
Atomic. Chunks. Of meaning.
What a marvel machine, what a totally divine programme. Please, Sir, could its heavenly beam not be aimed at me? For I really, really, really wouldn't mind at all being transformed into a stream of atomic chunks of meaning. In fact, couldn't the whole of creation be put through this programme? Would stop those of us inclined to spend too much time pondering over whether there's any meaning or purpose to any of it, freeing our mental capacities (such as they are, after years, or in some very terminal cases, decades of such futile mental effort) for something more constructive.
So yes, thank you, Signs. Quex is good. Very good. And I'd never heard of it.
But no, that view is not from my igloo, it's from the balcony I occasionally have to retire to at work. My igloo balcony looked much like it, though, on the one side (the one where the door does not open to). The other side was covered with tightly-packed snow, after months of ciggie-trips. Miraculously, and with some assistance from me kicking the packed snow asunder and down off the edge, my balcony is now entirely free of snow. Not a flake. Except just as I wrote these words, I raised my gaze and looked out the window and it is snowing again, so there will, after all, be some flakes there again. God help us all.
Beautiful seeing you. You are a living thing appearing again, here on this blog, fairly proving your point.
Mwah, Schwestah.
x
Kahless, squeezebox gets an extra gold star and an appreciative mention because it manages to have a z as well. Some nasties seem to want to write it as two separate words, though, but we'll say sucks-boo to them, right? Right.
Nice to see you, hope you're da iawn...
x
Sexy - feigning innnocence gets you nowhere with me and in these parts. You know perfectly well what I mean - I wrote you a lengthy piece in your native tongue when I last saw you. This means there's only one thing for it - Sexy, 您被排斥.
Stern and very final regards and no x's (or q's, for that matter),
A MR
Exquisite. You are, my dear.
Fair Amanda, you are a star.
x
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