Love-struck Troilus

Last night I had another dream,
this time about a stranger:
a young woman with asian features
who called herself Troilus.
I find this kind of ironic because
Troilus is the male lead in Chaucer’s
Troilus and Criseyde, which is in many
ways the precursor to Romeo and Juliet,
which makes Troilus basically a pre-Romeo.
That’s an over-simplification to be sure,
but even so. If this is a portent,
it’s an interesting and mysterious one;
and it leaves me too lost to try and psychoanalyze.
And that was it, that’s basically all
of the dream that I can remember,
though I doubt any of the other parts could
have been more interesting. I’m intrigued.

The world around me is sick, but I’m
feeling much better now, though this morning I awoke
with the weight in my head of too much
second-hand smoke. Having been a smoker, it really
bothers me that second-hand smoke should affect
me so much; it’s a recent development, and I
certainly never go around and chastise people for
smoking, but it has become physically difficult for
me to be around smokers. I find this annoying.
Maybe I should move to California? Ha!

Trying to get my life back on an even keel;
temper play with work and growth with frivolity
so that my eyes don’t lose their sparkle.
Having unpacked boxes of books, I’ve realized
that I spend far too little time reading these days,
and my imagination and my pen have suffered for it.
So no more of that, or actually, more of it!
I’ve got lots to do, no doubt, but I can surely
fit a page or two in here and there, and slowly,
once again begin to peck away at the sloppy
leaning towers of books lined against the wall
in our living room (we’ve as yet no bookshelves).
Sometimes I see the books and the X-box glaring
at each other: such immortal enemies as these
no living room would be complete without!
And I, mere mortal, caught between. Woe is I.

Life’s so rough.