I just realized today that "floor" as in 1st floor, second floor etc. actually refers to the floor you put in and walk on ... I always thought of the horizontal divisions of buildings as ceilings rather than floors. But the Up and the Down are the same and now it all makes sense. Gosh, my mind is in such a rut sometimes ... what else am I missing?

Now I wonder whether the difference in nomenclature of British "Ground Floor" vs. US "First Floor" is actually due to different building practices. If you didn't put in a suspended floor at ground level, it wouldn't count as a "1st floor" would it?

Interesting how words evolve. I definitely never thought of "1st floor" etc. as a "floor," but rather as a space or a location. It acquired a secondary meaning, I suppose.  3:48:51 PM    

Because I work with a lot of rather arcane (mostly historical information) I use Wikipedia a hundred times a day. A lot of times I find what I am looking for, sometimes I don't, sometimes I find part of what I am looking for. Sometimes the articles look like they could use a helping hand. Today I came across a "stub" that pleaded for adding to it. Since I had the info right there I opened the editing window but then I realized Wiki is a whole new universe with its own language and life-forms and I have no idea how to tinker under the hood.

Since I take so much from it, I feel I should give something back and I would enjoy it too since I deal in arcane information anyway. But I would need to spend a couple of hours familiarizing myself with the language and the geography of the place. And yet, I still have not mastered this Radio Userland thing (my categories are still dangling).

While it is a bit frustrating, the encouraging aspect is that there seems to be a place where I can deposit all the tidbits I have been accumulating. Maybe not right now, and maybe just one pebble at a time, but there is a place where I can be helpful.  3:43:22 PM    

It is spring. Time to clean up and reassess. Time to decide what to throw out and what to keep. And what to do with the keepsakes: stow them away at the back of your closet, or make them part of your life.

Scarves and mittens are in the washer and sandals optimistically replace fur-lined boots. Keeping a close eye, I allow sun-shine and spring breezes to caress my tomatoes, peppers, and geraniums. Overnighters are still off-limits.

While my hands sort and toss, I try to generate some order in the jumble of my mind. I am looking for some kind of Dewey decimal system to organize my interests, my predilections, my ruminations and my fears. The important things within reach and nothing forgotten.

I love libraries. I love how you can lose yourself in them and the surprises they hold. At the same time, they make me nervous and uncomfortable. They paralyze me. They force me to make decisions, to exclude. There is too much and I will never know what I am missing. They make me feel small.

I have experienced some of the happiest moments of my life in libraries. I want to go back there. I want to lose myself and celebrate my own irrelevance instead of struggling absurdly to overcome it.

Several weeks ago I came across a topic. I wasn't searching, it presented itself to me. It perfectly suits my interests and my background, while pushing me across boundaries. It spans the times, from very early to the present, and it circles the globe. It is nothing "big" or sensational, but it has captured me and it may just be perfect for me.

I have started some preliminary poking around, and I may take a related graduate course in the fall. Over the summer, I want to spend more time reading and putting my thoughts to paper. I don't know where this will take me, but I know that I need to do this. I know it won't be easy.

I may blog about my work as I move ahead. I do not intend to abandon this blog. I will keep posting about my pickles and jams (not much going on for a while though), and other culinary exploits, the saga of my roof garden or anything else that strikes my fancy. But I feel blogging needs to find its proper place in my mental landscape. I don't think it is the medium that suits me best. Maybe it is too free-wheeling; I seem to do better in a more constrained environment.

However, blogging has helped me sort things out and I got to meet a bunch of very cool people. Speaking of sorting things out and spring-cleaning: I know my category links could use some attention.  1:26:27 PM    

I find myself surprised by my interest in the Pope's departure. The spiritual, theological and political aspects of it have captured me much less than the rituals surrounding it, the way things are done, and the significance attached to procedure and protocol. I take delight in the antiquated vocabulary that has been dusted off and finds its way into the media. Strange, to see these words pop up on my computer screen.

No matter how lofty and spiritual, there are a lot of mundane-seeming details associated with the pope's passing. Bags need to be packed, belongings sorted through, rooms cleaned out in a matter of days and sealed for the successor and his entourage. House-keeping, so to speak, and little is left to chance or delegated to the arbitrary decisions of a cleaning-crew.  11:47:37 AM    

It appears that Catholic Poland would very like to have the deceased Pope's heart. And if the Pope provided for it in his testament, they will probably get it.

When I told my husband about this last night, there was a pause and then he said, "G., when her husband died, gave his body to the University hospital so it could be used for research purposes."

Yes. Where to even begin? The sentiments and the world-views underlying these two decisions and desires seem so disparate and irreconcilable. To devote the body of a loved one to research and the advancement of science is a noble decision and shows love and concern for humanity that goes beyond the intimate circle of the family. But, G's husband was not the pope, and his life and death, while not to be diminished in its significance, did not touch the same number of people as the Pope's did.

In Catholic belief, relics of saints are thought to possess great powers, and the heart, the seat of life, is the most powerful of all of them. By returning the heart of the Pope to his native soil, the Polish catholics hope for the spiritual presence of the deceased pope.

The mystical, Catholic belief and the scientific secular world-view seem so disparate, irreconcilable. Does it matter really where a dead person's heart is buried? And why do you need a relic to attain spiritual closeness? Why not just read his writings, pray or meditate?

Why would anyone think of the heart of a dead person as anything else than a muscle that is no longer throbbing? G. let go of her husband's body, but I imagine she kept something that his body touched. A piece of clothing, maybe, or a letter he wrote. Something where, for her, his spirit still resides.  2:45:07 PM    

The meme came from The Hermit's Notebook. I had come across memes here and there in the blogosphere, and had sort of an idea what they were, but I didn't understand the name. I was thinking circumflex and self-referential? Wrong. Wikipedia enlightened me and as it turns out, Wikipedia is a meme itself:

Meme, (rhymes with "cream" and comes from Greek root with the meaning of memory and its derivative "mimeme"), is the term given to a unit of information that replicates from brains and inanimate stores of information, such as books and computers, to other brains or stores of information.

So here it goes, replicated from my brain to your computer (by way of translating it from Mentalese into English and typing it up)

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

I don't have the cultural reference for this. I sort of know what it is about, but never actually read the book, so I'll pass. (That sort of thing happens to me a lot).

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Oh yes, when I was in my early twenties, I deeply adored the autobiographical narrator of Proust's Recherche. I dropped everything I was supposed to be doing and, for an entire year, I threw myself into the books. A new annotated German translation was coming out and I was waiting for each of the individual volumes as they appeared in the bookstores, one by one. What torture! I read each volume at least two to three times, and made copious notes. I was seriously afflicted. It took me a long time to get over it, and to start reading other stuff again. These were the days when I could just blow off an entire year ...

The last book you bought was?

A couple of Cynthia Rylant's Henry and Mudge books for a sixth birthday. For a grown-up birthday gift: Chez Panisse: Fruit by Alice Waters.
For myself, the last shipment from Amazon was: Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, Oxford Guide to Style, Mes Confitures: the Jams and Jellies of Christine Ferber by Christine Ferber, Putting Food By, Fourth Edition, by Janet Greene et al.

The last book you read was?

The last book I read was a book in German that I found at a used book store Die Überfliegerin by Angela Krauss, a (former) East German author. She had won some prestigious awards, but as far as I can see, none of her major works have been translated into English. And I doubt they ever will be. European prose is much more artsy and "experimental" (a word often used contemptuously by critics in the US) than prose manufactured in American workshops. In general I find American prose well-crafted, albeit, somewhat formulaic, whereas European writers are more out on a limb, fumbling around without a sheet of guidelines in their hands. As with Krauss' novella, there often is a much freer use of language and a lot of poetry in the prose, but the over-all structure may be less carefully executed.

What are you currently reading?

I started How To Be Alone, a collection of essays by Jonathan Franzen, I don't quite know why I started reading this, I guess, because it was around. I am not a fan of Franzen, and already read most of the essays anyway when they were published in the New Yorker.
The Oxford Guide to Style. Yes, I read that kind of thing front-to-back, I am that weird.
I am also reading Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, to keep up with my daughter and because I never read it in the original.

Five books you'd take to a deserted island?

The Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, Oxford Classical texts, along with commentaries by Kirk et al. on the Iliad and Heubeck/West on the Odyssey, and Liddell, Scott, Jones Greek-English Lexicon. On a deserted island anything contemporary or current will be outdated or irrelevant before too long. And this will keep me busy, let me work with language and give me a lot to think about. If a I had a lot of time on my hand I would definitely go back and read Homer.
Where is this island and how do I get there?

Who will you pass this stick (3 persons) on to, and why?

I am passing it to Rhye because I would like to get to know her better and she probably has some interesting things to say. I am also passing it to Mark although I think he may have been tapped already but I don't think he has responded yet. So, just do it, ok?
Everyone I "know" in the blogosphere seems to have answered already, so I will pass it to my daughter, because she is not as sick as she pretends to be and this will give her something to do.  11:13:03 AM    

(View from Harlem Meer)

We had a saffron day yesterday. Friends called us up and asked if we wanted to meet them in the park. They were driving in from NJ and have a 4-year old too. They suggested meeting at the 72nd Street entrance to the park, but we said "Naah, come up here, much nicer and less crowded." So we met up by the Harlem Meer.

I do not really want to add another description of The Gates, there are plenty of them out there already. Just a few personal impressions: Usually they are referred to as "fun," and they certainly are immensely joyful and spririt-lifting but at the same time they struck me as formal, processional in their series. I was especially surprised by the effect of the pleats supposedly "he put the pleats in there for the effect of the light shining through." (Some knowledgeable fellow-viewer told me). I found the pleats created a formal yet understated sassy look: reminiscent of the pleats on a formal living-room curtain, but also of the pleats on a prim school-girl's skirt.

What I like best about The Gates is that they are not an artwork you stand in front of and absorb passively (although it is pleasurable to spend a good half hour gazing at them from a good spot, say at the Harlem Meer, and observe the changing light, changes in the movement etc.), but in general they are to be experienced, walked through and around looked at from various angles and spots etc.

I did find that they integrated into the landscape, in way they seemed like mushrooms to me that had sprouted up all over. Walking south from the Meer to the Conservatory Gardens I appreciated little yellow flecks in the distance, suggesting a continuation and connection between our Northern rustic corner, often overlooked, and the "Upper East Side" stretch of the park along Museum Mile.

I was surprised by the variation in the arrangement of the Gates, both in their spacing and in their width. Climbing up the look-out on the South side of the Meer, they were so narrow that only one person could walk through comfortably at one time.

So, yes, it was a wonderful and great experience. The North corner of the park was populous but not overcrowded, about the same amount of people you would expect to find on the first nice Sunday in spring.

I will go back again on a weekday morning by myself and spend more time walking around.  9:29:02 AM