Gold and silver and bronze by gold

I met Jenny this morning for tea and mint hot chocolate. It occurred to me that I've now been friends with Jenny (whom I met in Ms. Braun's seventh-grade high performance English class) for over one-third of my life. It's an odd thought, if only because it makes my junior high days seem so distant. It's also a very comforting thought to know I have a friend of over seven years.

I met Sarah, a much more recent acquaintance (six months to the day by one definition), for lunch and an early-afternoon stroll. She took me to the Monona Terrace, which I had previously neglected to visit. As much as I dislike Frank Lloyd Wright in many respects (most notably what I view as pride of the inefficiency of his architecture), I have to concede that he was a genius. Sarah and I were the only two people of our age that we saw, and I was one of only three or four males. Sarah poked her head into one of the auditoriums and found that there was a workshop on wedding-related arts and crafts in progress.

This evening I read the eleventh episode of Ulysses, which is generally known as "Sirens." It was one of the more difficult episodes I've encountered thus far since the structure emulates music (which, of course, is central to the sirens' powers). The chapter begins with an "overture" of sorts which, using fragments of text, maps out the entire chapter. The sirens in this book have no magic, however; they are regular barmaidens (one brunette and one blond). I suppose, though, that many men would consider the effects of alcohol to be sufficiently enchanting.