2005-02-14 - 9:50 p.m.

The Gates and ee cummings

Happy Valentines Day. K and I decided to forego celebrations given that we are separated by many many MANY miles. And then of course this morning that little tiny bit of romantic in my soul reared its dissatisfied head and started whining about the lack of flowers on this dreary grey day....I couldn't control it.

Fortunately I didn't take it out on K. After all, ours was a mutual agreement to ignore the holiday. Still I think that Valentines Day would be far superior if it were a celebration of love rather than one for lovers. So I sent a batch of love poems to my friend J and he was touched.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Gates have opened in NYC and my friends and family are descending on me. 23 miles of saffron cloth blowing in the breeze - it must be a brilliant spectacle. My friend Lia arrives from Germany tomorrow evening while I am at choir. I am totally overloaded with work and she has more energy than an exploding supernova...but I'm hoping that it is infectious and wonderful to have her here. She herself is a swatch of saffron blowing in the breeze and so I am certain that I won't be able to help feeling uplifted by her presence.

Meanwhile, the proposal for the CRC chair nomination is finished, the NSF proposal is finished, all homeworks are graded, the paper reviews are submitted...I simply have to read four articles and write a lecture and I will have made it through this week...

In the name of Valentine's Day, I shall end with a favorite e e cummings poem:

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. ilike to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh .... And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of underme you so quite new