the power of three

Ickle was captain,
And Pickle was crew,
And Tickle served coffee and mulligan stew.
-- Shel Silverstein, "Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too"

If, in my whole life, I can ever write anything half as good as Shel Silverstein's worst poem, I will have succeeded. His website has recordings of him reading some of them (I also had a tape of him reading from Where the Sidewalk Ends when I was little, and I used to play it on my red Panasonic tape player in the backseat of my parents' station wagon) and they're gorgeous. If it's still in circulation, I think I need to get that recording for my favorite two-year-old ASAP.

You -- well, I, at least -- don't just love these poems in that I-liked-it-when-I-was-a-kid-and-so-I-like-it-for-how-I-used-to-feel-about-it way, either. They're amazing to adults, just clever and skillful and actually really deep in their own ways.

That is all for now. Life continues unabated. I'm a little afraid of May, how busy it will be and how I will not be home for more than 4 days at a time for several weeks, and how the book will languish during that time. Ah well. I wish I had a flying shoe like Ickle's, but don't we all. Over the sun and beyond the blue.

trading in his Chevy for a Cadillac-ac-ac-ac-ac-ac

One of my editors commented recently -- after being informed, not for the first time, that I actually know nothing about the subject he pays me to write about every day -- that he thinks the fullest realization of being a working adult is being able to fake it, all day, every day. Fake your knowledge of particular subjects and about everything in general, and to do it convincingly enough that everyone else still feels comfortable leaving you to run the ship. I think I love this theory. Do you think it's true, though? Do all those seemingly competant people really not have a clue?

This made me proud.

This is making me excited about cooking, specifically about making fruit salad this weekend.

This, which I saw with A and T this weekend, was great.

This had me nodding at my computer screen at work.

This had me laughing out loud on the train. Once I was so shocked and pleased and "woh, so true" about something she'd written that I instinctually covered my mouth with my hand. The woman in the next seat looked at me as though I was contagious.