Saturday, 11 May 2002

I got a haircut today. I mention that not because it's particularly important, but because it ended up being the event around which the whole day seemed to be organized.

The Farmer's Market has started, and we had thought to go today, but there wasn't time to fit it into the morning. First I slept late (until after 7:30) and then had a leisurely breakfast. We had thought to pack up our weight lifting stuff, go to the Farmer's market (but not buy any perishables (of which there aren't so many this early in the year anyway)), then go straight to the Fitness Center, and get done in time for my haircut. But we could see that wouldn't work as soon as we were packed up and ready to go. So, we just skipped the Farmer's Market.

It was rainy this morning. We considered doing our warmup inside on one or another of the machines, but couldn't face that. It wasn't terribly cold or windy, so we just went ahead and did our warmup by walking in the rain. It was nice. Then we did our usual workout and came home. We've been lifting regularly again for more than two weeks now. It feels good. There was a comfortable amount of time to shower and dress before going to get my haircut.

Coming in from the rain is great. Leaving the wet shoes by the door, peeling off wet clothes--it just feels good. Of course, there are plenty of great feelings in life, but putting on dry clothes after taking off wet ones is under-appreciated, I think.

I spent much of the afternoon reading poetry in Esperanto. There's a lot of great poetry in Esperanto, and I haven't read much of it. When I was more active in Esperanto I tended not to read poetry--just because I read very little poetry in English, I guess. But, really, poetry is a great choice for reading in a second language--a good poem is both compact and worth lingering over. So it can make sense to read it over two or three times, look up any unknown words, ponder just what a turn of phrase might mean, think about symbolism or double-meanings, and then read the poem over again for maximum appreciation. It's not so easy to do that with a novel.

After reading poetry, I took a nap with Jackie. I'm not much into naps, but this afternoon just seemed like a good afternoon for a nap. We ended up sleeping so late there wasn't time for Jackie to roast a chicken as she'd planned for dinner. We went to El Torero instead.

Besides Zne Haiku, Istvan Bierfaristo also writes fi-haiku. (Fi is an Esperanto prefix meaning "morally bad" or "depraved.") After reading all that poetry, I felt I wanted to write a bit myself. I ended up writing a fi-haiku. Here it is:

Ne plu tuŝi cin.
Ne plu vidi cin de for.
Aĉa leĝordon'!

In English it's something like:

No more to touch you.
No more to see you from far away.
Wretched restraining order!

Ah, that Istvan. He's a bad one, he is.