More Like: Receiving Economic Inflow (From Us)

Libby and I made our first trip as a married couple to REI yesterday and we couldn't resist its sweet siren song, so we left considerably poorer. Money-wise, anyway. In other ways we were immeasurably richer.

First, we got boots. I got some real backpacking boots! Libby got some real hiking boots! They are Vasques, name-brand boots, even I had heard of them before. They were expensive, but they should last a long time and keep our feet happy. We spent a long time trying to find some boots that seemed to fit right. I got a blister from tying shoe laces. I really did, on the inside of my pointer finger joint, where the lace sits as you tighten it, and it is uncomfortable. I finally popped it about an hour ago, and I feel happier now. I'll have to make sure not to get it infected.

Anyone want to go hiking? We're totally prepared.

We also bought some socks. I bought trekking socks to go with my backpacking boots, which complements my lighter hiking socks. Libby got hiking socks to go with her hiking boots, appropriately. We're very appropriate. Oh, and a new headlamp so we can walk in the dark. Good for owling, mayhap?

I also got a helmet and some reflector bike bands for my ankles. That way I kill two birds with one stone - I don't get smooshed by stoned birds (or cars) and my pants should stay out of the chain when I start bike commuting next week.

Well, sometime soon, anyway. After all, I have to break in my new boots.

Worst English Poem Ever?

I found this on Wikipedia's front page today, and it made me laugh: the worst poem ever.

Theophilus Marzials was a poet fairly well known by his contemporaries as both an eccentric and a talent in the literary world. He overshot himself, however, when he tackled the doleful subject of Tragedy. This is a poem to be taken very seriously:

A Tragedy

Theophilus Marzials

Death!
Plop.

The barges down in the river flop.

Flop, plop.

Above, beneath.

From the slimy branches the grey drips drop,
As they scraggle black on the thin grey sky,
Where the black cloud rack-hackles drizzle and fly
To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop
On the black scrag piles, where the loose cords plop,
As the raw wind whines in the thin tree-top.

Plop, plop.

And scudding by

The boatmen call out hoy! and hey!
All is running water and sky,

And my head shrieks -- "Stop,"

And my heart shrieks -- "Die."

* * * * *
My thought is running out of my head;
My love is running out of my heart,
My soul runs after, and leaves me as dead,
For my life runs after to catch them -- and fled
They all are every one! -- and I stand, and start,
At the water that oozes up, plop and plop,
On the barges that flop
And dizzy me dead.
I might reel and drop.
Plop.
Dead.

And the shrill wind whines in the thin tree-top
Flop, plop.
* * * * *
A curse on him.
Ugh! yet I knew -- I knew --
If a woman is false can a friend be true?
It was only a lie from beginning to end --

My Devil -- My "Friend"

I had trusted the whole of my living to!

Ugh; and I knew!

Ugh!

So what do I care,

And my head is empty as air --

I can do,

I can dare,

(Plop, plop

The barges flop

Drip drop.)

I can dare! I can dare!

And let myself all run away with my head
And stop.

Drop.

Dead.

Plop, flop.

Plop.

This was published in The Gallery of Pigeons (1874), initially. Credit for putting it on the internet goes to the website: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~cooneys/poems/bad/Marzials.Tragedy.html