The Man in the Mirror

This morning I woke up with a throbing headache ... not a good way to start a day, especially with the thought that the library is closed for the next three days due to the Memorial Day break. What to do, what to do?

There is a big heap of books, papers, and myriads of knick-knacks I have been meaning to clean up eons ago but always find an excuse to procastinate. "Just do it!' my brain hollered a stern order, and my body complied. It was done, amazingly quick and easy. I should have done it years ago.

Now that I have extra space on the desk I put second keyboard for an old computer that's been idle there for who knows how long. I turned it on [surprisingly, I still remember the login password :-] and found out that this is the computer I put together some years ago for learning-teaching language [Project Lingua]. The iTunes library was crowded with modules for Spanish, French, German and Italian, and I also found some oldies such as "Bee Gees' Greatest Hits" ... When I was small, and Christmas tree were tall ... [Oh boy, am I that old?]

From one of library books [I borrowed tons of them from the Public Library] a piece of paper fell on my lap. It appears to be a poem clipped from an old newspaper, dated December 31, 1999 - sent by the grandson of the author to Ann Landers' column. It goes like this:

The Mirror

By John T. West, Jr.

The other day, I happened by chance,

As I passed a mirror, to give it a glance.

And I wondered who that old man could be,

Who, with his mouth wide open, was looking at me.

His bald head was sprinkled with a little gray fuzz,

And he wasn't at all handsome (like I always was).

He looked like a sack of mismatched parts,

Put together without aid of instructions or charts.

And while I know that my shoulders don't slump,

This person's were misshapen in one ugly hump!

Now, if that was my image, I only can say,

They don't make mirrors like they did in my day.

For those who still think they need a reminder, at least once a year, by the-so-called 'birthday', let me extend my sympathy, from the bottom of my heart. It is not my birthday today, and I've already forgotten when it was or will be, but I try not to look at the mirror, at least in the next three days, until the library opens again on Tuesday [Then, it's business as usual, and I will be too busy to notice 'the man in the mirror'].

Have a nice weekend,

May 23, 2009

\Moko/

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