No way to breathe easy, no time to be young

Is that...Luke Skywalker playing guitar?

credidimus fatis

Caesar crosses the Rubicon:

"Fortune, it is you that I follow. Away with bargaining! We have put our trust in fate. We must proceed with war as the judge." Then he pressed straight on at the head of his men through the darkness of the night, swifter than the bullet from a Balearic sling or a Parthian’s parting arrow; and, full of menace, moved on nearby Ariminum. Leaving only the morning star behind, the stars fled before the fires of the sun, and the day broke that was to see the first upheavals of the war.

Lucan.

Heard of some gravesites, out by the highway

A place where nobody knows.

Sim, não tenho razão

“No, you’re right, I’m wrong”:

No, you’re right, I’m wrong ... 
Allow me to drift off from this pointless argument,
I’m wrong in my opinion, that’s fine, I’m not deeply attached to that opinion anyway ... 

I’m not even listening, you say? I don’t know.
I think I am. But repeat what you just said.
Love should be constant?
Yes, it should be constant.
But only in love, of course.
Say it again, will you? ... 

People make life so very complicated!
Yes, fine, I’ll bring the money tomorrow.

O great sun, you know nothing of this,
A joy we cannot even contemplate in the serene blue unreachable sky.

Álvaro de Campos.

Onward and Upward

26 years ago, today, Expedition 1 began our continuous habitation of space with NASA astronaut Bill Shepard and cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev. Earth is just as stunning and station is still a platform that opens the doors to our future on the moon and, eventually, Mars. In this orbit, on this day, we passed by the blue fishing boats and, in the end, even a little aurora. See if you can spot the landmarks from the map. You’re looking out of the port window of the cupola, so to the left of the line.

— Anil Menon (@astro_anil) November 2, 2026

I appreciate how Anil Menon doesn't explicitly go out of his way to make me feel old like Jared Issacman does:

If you’re under 26, you have never lived a day without someone orbiting above you. 26 years ago today, the first resident crew arrived at the ISS. Humanity has had a home in space ever since. The research and advances made possible by our crews, teams on the ground and international partners have helped prepare us to live and work on the Moon and Mars. As we transition to the next era of our presence in low Earth orbit, we build on everything they have made possible.

— NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman (@NASAAdmin) November 2, 2026

I am...significantly older than 26.  In fact, when I was 26, manufacturing ISS components had barely begun, and assembly wouldn't start for another 3 years.  While I was growing up, such a station was merely a dream (sorry, Skylab, A for effort).

Anyway, it's the kind of cool thing we can do if we put our minds to it.  What learning and wonders will the next 26 years of crewed spaceflight bring, in Low Earth Orbit and beyond?

Excelsior!

In a big country, dreams stay with you

Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside.

Silence Resounds

The Old Meeting House:

Its quiet graves were made for peace till Gabriel blows his horn.
Those wise old elms could hear no cry
Of all that distant agony—
Only the red-winged blackbird, and the rustle of thick ripe corn.

The blue jay, perched upon that bronze, with bright unweeting eye
Could never read the names that signed
The noblest charter of mankind;
But all of them were names we knew beneath our English skies.

And on the low gray headstones, with their crumbling weather-stains,
—Though cardinal birds, like drops of blood,
Flickered across the haunted wood,—
The names you’d see were names that woke like flowers in English lanes

John Applegate was fast asleep; and Temperance Olden, too.
And David Worth had quite forgot
If Hannah’s lips were red or not;
And Prudence veiled her eyes at last, as Prudence ought to do.

And when, across that patch of heaven, that small blue leaf-edged space
At times, a droning airplane went,
No flicker of astonishment
Could lift the heavy eyelids on one gossip’s upturned face.

For William Speakman could not tell—so thick the grasses grow—
If that strange humming in the sky
Meant that the Judgment Day were nigh,
Or if ’twere but the summer bees that blundered to and fro.

And then, across the breathless wood, a Bell began to sound,
The only Bell that wakes the dead,
And Stockton Signer raised his head,
And called to all the deacons in the ancient burial-ground.

“The Bell, the Bell is ringing! Give me back my rusty sword.
Though I thought the wars were done,
Though I thought our peace was won,
Yet I signed the Declaration, and the dead must keep their word.

“There’s only one great ghost I know could make that ’larum ring.
It’s the captain that we knew
In the ancient buff and blue,
It’s our Englishman, George Washington, who fought the German king!”

So the sunset saw them mustering beneath their brooding boughs,
Ancient shadows of our sires,
Kindling with the ancient fires,
While the old cracked Bell to southward shook the shadowy meeting house.

Alfred Noyes.

Saint Gabrielle

gabby williams and marine johannès 💜 https://t.co/KBHCQukZOh

— emma 🇫🇷 (@mjnecklace23) November 1, 2026

The WNBA season is now over, and I can, perhaps, turn attention to my languishing fantasy football roster.

It was...a crap year for the Storm in terms of wins and losses, but that's okay, because we saw Domi grow her game, as well as rooks Flau and Awa.  There's a high ceiling there for our youngsters.

On the other hand, it was a great year for my favorite player, Gabby Williams.  I was so sad that she left Seattle, but I am so happy for her and the Valkyries.  A Finals MVP for her, and a stunningly fast championship run for the second-year team.

I would very much like to see my beloved Queen Phee get a ring.  Same with Angel, who is a fucking star; I have loved watching her thrive in Atlanta.

But at present, it's my #2 team (Valks and Lynx are tied) with its very purple-y color scheme on top of the world.  And I get a break from hoop stress until Unrivaled Season 3.0 fires up in January.

Excelsior!

As cold as ice

I hope we live to tell the tale.

Beautiful, Elegant, Graceful, Silly, Fashionable and Strange

"The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!":

The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!
Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast,
Warm breath, light whisper, tender semi-tone,
Bright eyes, accomplish’d shape, and lang’rous waist!
Faded the flower and all its budded charms,
Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,
Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,
Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise –
Vanish’d unseasonably at shut of eve,
When the dusk holiday – or holinight
Of fragrant-curtain’d love begins to weave
The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight,
But, as I’ve read love’s missal through to-day,
He’ll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray.

John Keats.

There Is No Spoon

Emotional and Psychological Warfare: Constant gaslighting, devaluation, and manipulation designed to make them doubt their own reality.

— Narc.ology Pride (@NarcologyP) October 30, 2026

Just saw this, and...yeah.  

When I first met with a behavioral health professional on island, I told her, "I just don't know what's real any more."  Whatever I did, said, or thought was wrong, seemingly objective facts notwithstanding.  Like, I took up silly defensive measures such as making sure I always left one plate on the cupboard shelves or one spoon in the utensil drawer or whatever so Ericka couldn't scream at me for putting things in the wrong place (that was not entirely effective).

When we were engaged in the adversarial process at family court, I'd provided a lot of documentation to show the pattern of abuse, and included notes from that provider and my current therapist she'd connected me with, whom I'd told the same thing about Ericka's gaslighting.  Opposing counsel tried to use my comments about doubting my own reality to prove I was insane and dangerous.  We are fortunate that was not effective.

Selah.

#hauntedthrowback

First Halloween on island, and I knew this is where I belonged.  (2019)

Good example of how curated IG can hide painful reality.  (2019)

Ericka's chewing gum hides a missing tooth.  Due to her never-identified immune disease she started having connective tissue problems, and that tooth became loose not long before we moved up here (she refused to go to the appointment I'd set up for her with a dental reconstruction provider).  She knocked it out herself when she had me backed against the kitchen sink in our Belltown apartment and headbutted me in the chest.  

As usual, I don't precisely recall what sin I'd committed to ignite her rage, only the terror.  NGL, it felt like karma (Ericka loved to say, "Karma!" and do the Vivian Kensington head shake).

Anyway, I continue to have difficulty exorcising all the ghosts...

Cold love

You loosen my alignments.

portendere

Omens:

Her eyelids were painted blue.
When she closed her eyes the sea
rolled in like ten thousand fiery chariots,

leaving behind silence above & below
a thousand years old. He stood beneath
a high arched window, gazing out

at fishing boats beyond the dikes, their nets
unfurled, their offshore gestures
a dance of living in bluish entourage.

He was only the court’s chief jester.
What he said & did made them laugh,
but lately what he sometimes thought he knew

could cost him his polished tongue & royal wig.
He was the masked fool unmasking the emperor.
Forget the revelation. Forget the briny sea.

He had seen the ravishing empress naked
in a forbidden pose. Her blue eye shadow.
Aquamarine shells crusted with wormy mud.

Anyway, if he said half of what was foretold,
the great one would become a weeping boy
slumped beneath the Pillars of Hercules.

Yusef Komunyakaa.