Love

I Leave Me No Choice

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

In Act 2, Scene 2, of Hamlet, the doomed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are chatting with Prince Hamlet. They are his old college buddies, and King Claudius (Hamlet’s step-father) and Queen Gertrude (his mother) have sent for them to attempt to learn what is bothering the young man, who has been acting with an “antic disposition” and saying strange things, half to himself and half to, well, no one can figure out who.

Hamlet greets them and speaks in the same riddling manner that he has been using with the rest:

HAMLET: Let me question more in particular, my good friends, what you have done to deserve such fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?
GUILDENSTERN: Prison, my lord?
HAMLET: Denmark’s a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ: Then the world is one.
HAMLET: A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’ the worst.
ROSENCRANTZ: We don’t think so, my lord.
HAMLET: Why, then ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.

Hamlet quickly determines that they are not merely dropping in to talk about sports and the weather or to compare Klout scores but are indeed spies. Ultimately, he manages to have them both killed.
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On That Note …

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Every once in a so often, I return home to a sticky note (stolen from my stash without repayment) bearing a note from my girlfriend. Sometimes she is returning something, sometimes not. Always the same note.

It is always a welcome sight.
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Forever Snug

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

My current crush and I are grabbing some sun today at the same local pond I wrote about last week in “Forever Snug“:

Yesterday was one of those days in which the lifeguards outnumbered the swimmers. We were at a local park that features a small lake and beach; busy late August life kept the crowds away even on a sunny Saturday afternoon, so we were one couple out of maybe ten groups. Two families, each with three water-loving toddlers, splashed about, and none of the children were yet old enough to test their limits against the flimsy, algae-covered nylon rope demarcating the “deep end” on three sides. The lifeguards chatted with the families, flirted with each other, bought each other ice cream, and burned off the calories breaking each others’ speed records chasing after the ice cream truck.
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