January 22, 2002
It was the sort of It was the sort of dark, cold, dry night that I used to love when I was a kid in Maine. The stars were out in such force you could see them as a shimmering blanket behind the brighter stars.

My mother and I were standing in the driveway, a third of the way down to the street, looking to the west. The power must have been out; there were no electric lights anywhere that I could see, not in front of the Kennedys, nor in front of Clyde's. There was nothing but the sharp, ragged black edge of the treeline and the amazing shine of the sky.

We looked west and saw shooting stars, once every so often and then more and more with greater frequency, oddly shooting at sharper and sharper angles, as if in to the place where the trees hide the curve of the road, until they came straight down into the gap where the road was to go.

I must have been very young. The road came to a halt just beyond those trees, then, though they extended it into a loop a few years later. Mom looked young, too, and her eyes shone with the stars and the sudden cold blue flame of the shooters.

We turned suddenly, to the east behind us, after the shooters had stopped coming. In that strange oneiric immediate way, we were behind the house, looking up at Casseopeia and Cephus, the queen and king.

Like fresh fireworks, the larger stars went supernova, filling the skies with light of all colors; then the smaller stars, like a wave of aurorae. The wind came up low and cold.

I still felt safe, then; I knew that the stars were far away; I knew that this had happened a long time ago. I knew that it might have surprised someone now long dead but that it would be a very long time, indeed before we felt the wake.
Posted by schampeo at 01:48 AM
The ancient Greeks used drama The ancient Greeks used drama as a source of artificial catharsis. We use drama to sell asthma medicine.
Posted by schampeo at 01:28 AM
January 14, 2002
Well, it's been quite a Well, it's been quite a few weeks. Went on a whirlwind trip to NYC, Maine, Ithaca, and Syracuse just after Christmas, and wore ourselves out driving. Got caught in a snowstorm thirty miles out of South Hill, VA, and it took us five hours to drive the eighty miles home. The snow is all but gone from Raleigh, except for the occasional snowbank in a parking lot. And I've just finished up the author review of my book, so I can return to some semblance of a normal life now.
Posted by schampeo at 11:52 AM