The Bluest of Blues

Planetarium, Griffith Observatory
Los Angeles

This has been a difficult week, so after an unbloggable morning meeting and in lieu of weeping while driving around the shitty, I drove up to Griffith Park Observatory and bought two $7.00 tickets to two planetarium shows. 

I lay back in my chair and listened to the program about water and the planets and the stars. We began at the bottom of the ocean, and when a blue whale's shadow swam over me, the tears leaked out of my eyes and then the stars came out, the constellations, the moon waxing and waning, the world spinning even as my body lay, stardust still --

During the second, Ptolemy's crystal sphere shattered into a bigger universe, 

more stars 

the galaxy, 

something beyond.

Despair After Sadness

Despair is still servant
to the violet and wild ongoings
of bone. You, remember, are 
that which must be made 
servant only to salt, only 
to the watery acre that is the body
of the beloved, only to the child
leaning forward into 
the exhibit of birches 
the forest has made of bronze light
and snow. Even as the day kneels 
forward, the oceans and strung garnets, too,
kneel, they are all kneeling, 
the city, the goat, the lime tree
and mother, the fearful doctor,
kneeling. Don’t say it’s the beautiful 
I praise. I praise the human, 
gutted and rising.

Katie Ford

Pi Day and the Night Before

Pi reminds us that the universe is what it is,

that it doesn't subscribe to our ideas

of mathematical convenience.

Manil Suri

 The New York Times

I don't know much about mathematics other than the usual math facts that I learned a thousand years ago. I don't even much care about mathematics which I'm sure stems from that early learning, when girls like me were thought to be "bad at math." I appreciate its importance, though, and for a moment, every now and then, I get it. Understanding math, even its most sophisticated abstractions, is sort of like feeling fish swimming around your brain and then, every now and then, grabbing one even for a moment before it slips from your grasp and swims on.

My sister and niece are visiting us this weekend from their home in St. Louis. Yesterday, they joined us for SUP Friday in Redondo Beach, and afterward, we went to a beach shack and ate some lunch before heading home.

That's a picture of a guy with a man bun towing his tow-headed little boy on a mini-surfboard. #IloveCalifornia

Later, we drove up to Griffith Park Observatory and watched the sun set. 

Then we sat in the car up there for an hour playing silly car games while we waited for it to get completely dark. Tomorrow is the Los Angeles Marathon, and the route is from downtown to the sea. To mark the route, the city arranged for enormous lights at each mile, and last night they lit them for the first time. Hundreds of people were up at the observatory to see them lit, and while it wasn't as dramatic as we'd thought, there's still something very cool about seeing the famous skyline, the snow-topped mountains in the distance, the ocean far to the west and this enormous city lit up below you.

None of my photos really came out, but here's one from the Los Angeles Times:

photographer: Robert Gauthier