Sunday 22 April 2001

Pic of the day: There's good company in a good book. Compared to nothing.

Goodbye again

I arrive so rarely and yet I leave so often.

Long into the night had we spoken together, like in days long past - only more honestly and yet more cautiously. In the morning I wandered foreign and magic landscape of dream until a familiar voice woke me. I woke to the tiredness that seems to always come after dreams of magic. (Is this why some fantasy writers insist that casting spells tires the wizard? Have they dreamt dreams like mine?)

We ate a late breakfast. Old Friend had arrived with her two small boys. They are not twins, but none of them speaks yet. (Unless you count random outbreaks of "papa" for no obvious reason and with no papa in sight.) It was fun to meet my old friend again; she's moving to Kristiansand around the end of the month, so chances are we'll meet more often. She still mixed up my name with her husband's; I truly hope this is not as common the other way around. Like SuperWoman, she is left-handed, and I wonder if their speech centers are in the wrong brain hemisphere. They do speak strangely at times. Like the time Old Friend claimed that she did not need film for the camera - she had flash...

I made jokes about purse holding, the ultimate sign of domestication in men. Despite their father's dark misgivings that women want to force men into a stall and lock the door from outside, I remained unworried. Domestication is the most likely declaration of love I'll ever get. Do not mistake this: Domestication is in the blood of women. A man loves his woman the way she is; but a woman loves her man for the potential she sees in him. Men are clay in women's hands ... but some are silly putty.

SuperWoman had to go to work at 15 (3PM), an hour before my train left. I managed to secure one last hug. Her family giggled as she stood with her hand outreached and I with my arms flung wide open. But beside being funny, it is pretty descriptive. I'd like to think that I love her twice as much as she loves me. And a good thing it is, too. I doubt I would dare love someone who loved me too. There's no guessing what might happen then. Besides, they would miss me. We don't want that.

***

The train ride home was utterly uneventful. I finally got around to read the fantasy book I had bought cheap before the trip, The Chaos Balance. (No relation to the Chaos Node.) Modesitt Jr is good at crafting not quite standard magic systems that still seem reasonable and consistent. I have only read the two first books of his Spellsong cycle before, which had a different magic system but still enjoyable.

After a while, and elderly man came on the train. Luckily he had not got the seat beside me, but behind me. There he at once commenced telling the woman already there the complete life history of the city where he grew up. It was a tale of high drama for the minutes that lasted before I put on my headphones and ordered Cassie to play Lagoona loud enough to drown it out.

***

I came home late and had a lot of online stuff to catch up on, on the mailing lists and the forums I attend. I also got one of the strangest mails till now. You know e-cards? There are several providers of these cards, which you can send to cheer up friends and generally do all that paper postcards can, and then some. (Well, except for stamp collectors.) This was an animated love-you card from some guy who I have no idea who is.

Sorry, it's just not the same.

***

I know you really loved me,
but you see, my hands were tied.
I know it must have hurt you,
it must have hurt your pride
to have to stand beneath my window
with your bugle and your drum
and me up there waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come...

Leonard Cohen, Waiting for the miracle (from the CD The Future).