Monthly Archives: January 2014

Gone As The Year

Gone are the days when she parented me,
Saying, “You should come with us sometime;”
Should being a parenting word,
Not a word for use with an equal.

Gone are the days when she talked with me,
Free as the dawn, bright as a butterfly.
Plauged with constrained conversation,
No give-and-take reciprocation.

That year is gone; now I get the silent treatment
Or paying no attention to me,
Only to others around.
A test of jealousy?

I feel no jealousy, only self-respect.
Of him, nor him, nor him am I jealous.
Rather, I respect myself to enforce this condition:
Pay attention to me, talk with me, be an equal.

Today the condition is not held.
Today she has only deliberately ignored.
Today is filled with inequality.
So I fill my heart with disregard.

Tomorrow I’ll try to disregard today.

Copyright © 2014 H.K. Longmore

Related Posts:

Reciprocation

John Lyly we paraphrase: “All’s fair in love and war.”
My euphuistic lines elicit sounds nasal,
Through bore bring some to snore.

Do not chase, some say,
The right people who belong in your life
Will come find you and stay.

But remember reciprocity is a knife
For opening packaged moments
With emotion rife—

Those which strife foment,
Those we wish would endure forever;
And some that changed what “Oh!” meant.

It is at work in nearly all endeavors,
The reader to the writer
The chef to your olfactory pleasure.

It is in the ring with prize fighters,
The teacher and student learning together;
And two that hold each other tighter,

In the hills of Banoffee, in the heather.
It aids mighty generals, war-seasoned,
And strangers talking of the weather.

Reciprocity is also the reason
For joy deep in the core
When laryngeal treasures aural nerves are pleasing;

When heartstrings sing “Je t’adore”.

Copyright © 2014 H.K. Longmore

Related Posts:

 

Link

Is it Smart for Me to Take Out Student Loans?

Is it Smart for Me to Take Out Student Loans?

In this post my friend (whose recent post “Do You Want Financial Security or the Appearance of Wealth,” on 30 Dec 2013 on www.micawberprinciple.com, was selected to appear on rockstarfinance.com, a site that describes itself as “A Collection of Awesome Money Articles.”) discusses how to estimate the financial payoff for taking out student loans.

Applying this retroactively to my undergraduate degree and student loans, my payoff time was 0.65 years. In actuality, because I had an incredibly low interest rate, I paid it off slowly, with only an extra $10/month toward the principle, until I was about 2/3 done, then I started paying it off aggressively. My total payoff time in real life was about 4 years.

Languages of Love

An Americanized Haiku cycle

I was clearing snow off of people’s vehicles at work the other day before leaving, and I was reminded of an event and conversation from a few years ago. This served as a partial inspiration for this poem. One Sunday in March that year, I was clearing snow off of people’s vehicles after church (the congregation consisted of single students). There was one vehicle in particular that I wanted to clear the snow from, as an act of service to utilize that third language of love. A friend was helping me, and I made sure I cleared the snow from the car I wanted to. We did several other cars, and eventually a female friend leaving from choir practice "caught" us as we were near her car. Later, our ward congregation gathered for prayer in the evening. This female friend brought up the snow clearing. In response to whatever she had said, I mentioned that indeed, there was one car in particular I wanted to get. My friend asked, "So did you get the car you wanted to get?" I said I had. Another young woman had come near around then, heard that last bit, and asked, "So what kind of car did you get?" It still makes me laugh.

Doctor John Lund speaks
Of three languages of love.
Not Latin nor Greek;

Communication
Of feelings of affection,
Of adoration,

Is what classifies
These universally known
Tongues of human kind.

The first, as a dove,
From our mouths come dulcet tones
Showing forth heart, mind;

To loved ones they fly.
A kiss, a hug, holding hands
In Venn Diagram

Circle of second,
Dear to the heart they beckon
As time slips away.

Oh be not dismayed,
I’ll tell you language third;
‘Tis where love is shown

By deed, being served.
In all these my heart has grown,
And each I have sown.

Sometimes by custom
Or by laws of God or man
Language may be banned.

These words, please trust ’em,
When speaking love is taboo;
Ca, c’est défendu,

Skin—largest organ—
To caress, tickle, or kiss.
Use laws De Morgan:

Not second or first
Leaves for use only the third—
In service find bliss,

Though craving for word
And spark and fire you may miss
(Not alone in this),

From one heart they come.
Ability to feel not numbed
By unspoken tongues;

Heart with song now hums
E’en though sleep be required,
By thee inspired.

Copyright © 2014 H.K. Longmore

Three Misses

Soaking wet

Leaving work one day I took my AWD vehicle through a patch of snow that wasn’t plowed. The magnitude of my velocity vector was too small, inspiring the second stanza. My pants and gloves got soaked trying to dig the snow out from underneath.

Was it this word,
Or that, that she said?
“Life” he thought he heard,
But ’twas spoken while she fed;
“Mouth” is thus not absurd.
Misheard.

It will not budge;
His car is stuck.
The ice-crusted snow it can only nudge.
Did he think he drove a truck?
Must he now homeward trudge?
Misjudged.

For words overheard in passing he could
Seek meaning, though lacking context.
Alternate possibilities, weight of wood,
He might settle on the wrong text.
The comment made, was it for the good?
Misunderstood.

Copyright © 2014. H.K. Longmore

Link

Ask (and Answer) the Right Questions Before Taking Out Student Loans

Ask (and Answer) the Right Questions Before Taking Out Student Loans

Another finance blog post from my friend. Make sure to give System 2 a bit of a push off the couch. (It helps the analysis if your intended field of study as a grad student pays you to get the degree, as was the case for me.)