You drop off to sleep

A couple of poems culled from a larger series by Tachibana Akemi, a japanese poet of the early 1800s:

Happiness is when
you're talking in bed
with the covers pulled up
and while you're talking
you drop off to sleep

Happiness is when
you get up in the morning
and see a flower
that wasn't there
yesterday

Read them again. Good. Unlinked to the poems, other than through my own recent experiences: did you know that it wasn't until 1973 that the APA removed homosexuality from the DSM? Prior to that, homosexuality was categorized as a psychosis. Do you understand the breadth of the consequences of that? Anyone could lose their job, or be denied a position, based solely on their sexual orientation as a mental illness until the 70s. It was in the books as "crazy." That's fucked. The episode of This American Life on the topic brought tears to my eyes. Let's hear it for the GayPA.

1973? Seriously. Also, I watched Milk the other night. That was very worthwhile.

The other day, I was told that I'm brave. Less true than the "fit as a mountain goat" thing — especially when compared to this little toaster. Brave, nonetheless, is a great word.

I thought I felt an earthquake for the first time in my life the other day. The couch seemed to lurch in a strange way. A scan of the USGS site though suggests I made it up. Or that a very large truck must have cruised by. Possibly related, possibly not: the sky of Albuquerque is the loudest sky I can ever remember experiencing. Anywhere. There is an airport not far out of the city — but I can hardly understand how that could account for some of the daily rumblings that tumble from the sky above. Windows shake. Things rattle on shelves. It was definitely something that I noticed right away when I first got here (like the iron bars over all the windows, our jails) but then I became accustomed to it over the course of a few months. Visitors comment on it often, though (same with the iron bars).

The point is, the sky of ABQ rumbles somethin' fierce. And it can't simply be the airplanes, which certainly take off hourly. This massive rumble happens just a couple times a day. My hypothesis is that ABQ is located in the gut of a world with indigestion. That said, the planes are sometimes quite loud, too.

The next place I live will have no quaking sky. And no iron bars.