Pleasures Leave Too Early and Troubles Leave to Slow

Many's the time I wished I could come return from a vacation and be like those people who come back from vacation all refreshed and ready and eager to work. Have you ever seen people like that? I have, and unfortunately, I'm not one of those people. Whenever I come back from vacation it just seems like I'm just ready for more vacation. What's that old Ogden Nash rhyme -

All my life would I gladly spend
In nonchalance and insouciance
Were it not for having to make a living
Which I find to be rather a nousiance.

Yep, that's me.

The Southwest is nice, though. You have you're rocks, and dirt, and dust, and more rocks, and more dust, and more dirt, and so on and so on. Add in the traffic and the heat and it's easy to see why so many people are leaving California to move to the Southwest. I can't blame them, and it's true that the cost of living is much lower down there than it is up here, but I don't think I'd want to live down there. And it's not because of the weather or anything like that. It's more about nuances, the subtle, everyday, Bay Area kind of things that you miss when you're down in Arizona or New Mexico. You know what I'm talking about, the little things you just seem to take for granted up here...

Like vegetation and water.

I had a good flight though. Well no, actually I had a crummy flight, but then I hate to fly so for me any flight is a crummy flight. This one was just crummier than most. The flight was on United so I naively assumed that we'd be flying an actual passenger jet, or at least something similar, but they suprised us by putting us on a CRJ instead. If you've never flown on a CRJ before, well, just picture in your mind one of those little mini motorcycles you may have seen buzzing around town, and then think of something smaller. The plane seats 4 across with a little crease running up the middle of the plane that the airlines, in all seriousness, call an "aisle". Of course, I made the mistake of booking an aisle seat for the outbound leg, which meant that everytime someone passed my row I had to make a quick lean to the right to avoid getting a face full of someone's butt. Needless to say, I booked a window seat for the return.

Geez, I had so much I was going to say but I guess I'm feeling a little lagged tonight. Oh well, save it for another day.

Maria Stuarda

If you are looking for a good Opera DVD (and who isn't?) try this one with Remigio, Ganassi, Calleja and Zanellato. Even though it features a cast of unknowns, the singing and the acting are both quite good, and it's an unusual opera in that the drama centers around the two female leads rather than the usual male-female arrangement. Carmela Remigio is particularly good in the title role, and Sonia Ganassi plays a different kind of Elisabetta than you may be used to - less a queen than a woman scorned, and an interesting counterpoint to the famous Sills portayal. Marzio Giossi also does well with a good, if small evil baritone part, and really seems to have mastered the art of the arched eyebrows. Ooh, they're so evil when they arch those brows.

Anyways, I'd thought I'd use this blog to try to impart some actual useful information for a change. You know, something journalistic that teachers can cite and decision makers can use. Something that proves to people that this blog isn't a total waste of time. Something that future generations can point to as an important turning point in their lives. Something that ...

Oh, never mind. Hopefully I'll have something to write about later.