Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"America's security comes from our freedoms. For more than two centuries, we have maintained a delicate balance between freedom and the opportunity for crime. We deliberately put laws in place that hamper police investigations because we know we are more secure because of them. We know that laws regulating wiretapping, search and seizure, and interrogation make us all safer, even if they make it harder to convict criminals." -- Bruce Schneier, CTO of Counterpane Internet Security, "Fingerprinting Visitors Won't Offer Security", Newsday.com, 2004-01-14.

We're moving from the feline conductive cooling season (sleep on the coolest patch of lineoleum on the bathroom floor) to feline solar heating season (oooh, sunbeam!). I'm in no hurry for proper cold to arrive, given that a grape vine has invaded through the window in the server room and the oil tank in the basement is empty, but one or two nights of freezing temperatures won't cool the house too quickly as long as another warm spell follows. And that's what I'm hoping for, because the ragweed pollen is doing extremely uncomfortable things to my sinuses and the roof my my mouth. Alas last night didn't get quite cold enough. Ideally the freeze should happen mid-week and then we should have comfortable (slightly cool to accomodate the amount of exercise a leaping guitarist does) weather for the weekends when I've got performances.

Woke around noon, was informed that feeding the cat was extremely urgent, fetched the mail while Perrine ate, and found a snailmail letter from one of my college roommates (Roger, my third and fuzziest roommate). He's in a PhD program now. In the letter he complained about not having enough room to store his books. "My apartment is a mess, but it's a LITERATE mess." Okay, all my friends who can identify with that statement raise your hands ... It seems appropriate, somehow, to get this reminder of my past, a reconnection to an old friend I've drifted farther from than I'd like, as the weather is turning autumnal. I know that spring is tradtionally the "season of awakenings and new beginnings", but for me there's always been more of that magic in autumn, as changes in temperature and humidity and the flavour of the sunlight combine with memories of soccer season and school starting to make me feel more alive, more awake somehow. If only I weren't so bloody tired physically.

Yesterday a surprise visit from jbsegal, today a letter from Rogest (our circle of friends decided, when we were in school, that he was not merely "Rog" or "Roger", but the "Rogest" person we could imagine, so only the superlative form would do). I wonder whether there'll be another surprise tomorrow.

Oh wow. Autumn. October. I have to start thinking of a Samhain costume.

Yay for stupid flying insects. I didn't get a close enough look to identify the species, but it was the wrong size and shape for a housefly and moved wrong for a mosquito -- the important detail is that it wasn't clever enough to fly above cat-leaping range when Perrine was in the room. She likes chasing thrown toys, and lately has taken to trying to snag them out of the air as they go over her head. It only took her one swat and one leap to down the bug. One cat entertained, one fewer bug in the house, win-win.

Okay, must force myself to deal with changing guitar strings ...