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Friday, February 25, 2005

 
11:29 PM: the moon is my heart: scarred, barren & bright [#] [0]

last night sven & i used the binoculars he gave me for xmas to watch the full moon rise from the butte. it was gorgeous! we could see all of its craters and scars and shadows and hollows. and it shone so bright it left afterimages. we could even see a tiny star next to it in the binoculars that we couldn't see in the sky because the moonglow made it disappear. i can hardly wait for the next total lunar eclipse, which occurs in... march 2007. *sigh* then we looked at all the stars in the winter hexagon we've learned from 365 starry nights, which i just cannot recommend enough as a completely approachable & highly educational observational astronomy book. with the binoculars, you really can tell that betelgeuse is a red star and rigel is a blue one. orion's sword is a streak of scattered stars rather than just one or two, and in it you can see the small smudge which you would recognize as the horsehead nebula if you had a more powerful telescope. but best of all, you can see the 15-20 stars that make up the pleides, that otherwise looks like a dim patch to the right of taurus.

tonight i went to see "sky blue" at cinema 21, which i would have liked better if someone 5 or 6 rows back wasn't talking loud enough that i could hear, and often even mocking the movie. grrrrrrr. i like theatres. i like the rustling and the shifting and even the occasional low whisper. but there's a special hell for people who talk in movie theatres, a special demon to torment those who act like they're at home watching a video. it wasn't all grumpiness, however: when i bought my tickets the girl in the box office unexpectedly exclaimed, "your hair is beautiful!" "thanks!" i reflexively responded, both startled & pleased by her sincerity.