The Stare's Nest By My Window

The bees build in the crevices
Of loosening masonry, and there
The mother birds bring grubs and flies.
My wall is loosening; honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

We are closed in, and the key is turned
On our uncertainty; somewhere
A man is killed, or a house burned.
Yet no clear fact to be discerned:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

A barricade of stone or of wood;
Some fourteen days of civil war:
Last night they trundled down the road
That dead young soldier in his blood:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart's grown brutal from the fare,
More substance in our enmities
Than in our love; O honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

(W. B. Yeats)


One of my favorite poems. Love the cadence. Love the images. That last stanza absolutely slays me.

Blogging My Fat: Week 7 (?)

I think this is week seven. And boy, I have made a piss-poor effort this month. The rugby season has ended, which means it is entirely up to me to move. Entirely up to me. Bah!

Blogging My Fat: Week 5.5

I haven't really had a fire lit under my gigantic butt yet about this weight loss thing, not even with the scary bet I have going with my parents. You'd think the threat of having to hang out with my dad every evening for a month to talk politics would have me racing towards the track most evenings after work. Maybe my lack of motivation stems from all the late meetings I have been having at City Hall or the nasty sinus infection that has kept me out of work for the last couple of days. Nahh, it is probably just that being fat is too darn easy. Crave a double cheeseburger? Hit up the drive-thru. Need a quick jolt of sugar for those sleepy afternoon hours in front of the computer monitor? Vending machines on G-12 and the observation deck. Fail to set aside time to pack a healthy lunch? You can take your pick from all of the lunch carts within a three block radius, hoof it to some super restaurant in Shockoe Bottom, or go the really lazy route and find something at the deli downstairs.

I need to find something to push me beyond this apathy. Here are some reasons I want to lose weight, in no real order:

- to inspire my tubby family members
- get a smokin' body
- relive my former rugby glory days
- better skin
- cuter clothes
- keep the diabetes that runs rampant in my family at bay
- be able to run a marathon