Maryland mud

Once upon a time, I had a friend whose favorite smell in all the world
was the smell of the earth after rain. He told me once, almost
seriously, that if I could make my hair smell just like the air after a
rainstorm, he would marry me and devote the rest of his life to
worshipping my hair.

We do not have that smell here. It's been a wet week, and this morning
everything -- my apartment complex, my school ten miles away, my car,
and probably my justly unworshipped hair -- smells like the back end of
an old stone drainpipe clogged with rancid meat and rotten vegetables
and used paper napkins.

This is one of many reasons I hope to move home to Nebraska when I
finish my degree.

The Chronicles of Narnia

When I was little, I re-read C.S. Lewis's Narnia books dozens of times
-- quite possibly hundreds of times. I knew perfectly well that the
numbers on my Narnia books (which were numbered in the order the
books were published) didn't follow Narnian chronology. In particular,
books 5 and 6 were out of place; both belonged near the beginning of
the sequence. This never bothered me; in fact, I liked having the
extra information. To find out what order Lewis wrote them (or did
he?) you had to look at the numbers or the copyright dates, but once
you'd read the books, it wasn't hard to remember what order they really
happened in.

On more than one occasion since then, I've refused to replace my poor
weathered Narnia books with a new set -- even if the new set is really
lovely, and has the real Pauline Baynes illustrations -- because
someone out there went and re-numbered them! Now they're numbered
in Narnian chronological order. I was almost as happy being
righteously irritated over this travesty as I would have been with a
shiny new set of Narnian Chronicles.

And now I am re-reading Lewis's Letters to Children (along
with another collection of his letters), and I've come across a mildly
distressing piece of information. I'm sure I've read this letter
before, so I must have just blocked out the fact that C.S. Lewis
preferred the "new" order for the Chronicles. He didn't think the
publication order really meant anything. He wasn't even sure he'd
written the books in the order they were eventually published. It was
all just my own pedantry.

Sigh.

Had we but world enough and time...

To his Coy Mistress

by Andrew Marvell


Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.