Which is just what the best men do

Tonight I had dinner with schreibergasse, and hans_the_bold, who is staying with me until he can find an apartment, and a newly-met friend whose livejournal name I do not know, at Miya's, the home of crazy sushi. It was incredibly, impressively good. We tried all sorts of outlandish rolls, like the Passion Without Words (mushrooms and brie, tempura-fried) and Ebi Tori (shrimp tempura, chicken, melted havarti, and dill sauce) and Ginger Eggplant Teriyaki (with avocado and sweet potato), and dishes like Kung Fu Tuna (seared, with jalapeño sauce), and all of them were delicious, but what was most amazing was that the chef kept bringing us different flavors of sake on the house, greenpine, sumac, walnut, sassafrass—and for hans_the_bold who doesn't drink, equally insane nonalcoholic concoctions like hibiscus soda and another made with ginger and lemongrass—and made us a new and completely experimental dessert with tiny fried crabs sort of crusted sweet and spicy. I should send him a card, or write poems to his cooking, or something. This was unexpected and wonderful.

I have kept miserable track of my life lately. I neglected to mention that last weekend I attended the 2006 NOMAD Festival, where I met ap_aelfwine and heard teenybuffalo perform ballads and dramatic recitations, of which I think the Spoonerized Adventures of Robin Hood may have impressed me the most, although "I'm Taking My Oyster for Walkies" is also ridiculously catchy. There were swans on the salt marshes when I came down on the train on Friday, and most of that night I spent in a Cadfael marathon with my dear friend who does not have a livejournal. I am re-reading Neil Gaiman's The Sandman.

And I missed posting anything for Armistice Day; so.

It's difficult with the weight of the rifle.
Leave it—under the oak.
Leave it for a salvage-bloke
let it lie bruised for a monument
dispense the authenticated fragments to the faithful.
It's the thunder-besom for us
it's the bright bough borne
it's the tensioned yew for a Genoese jammed arbalest and a scarlet square for a mounted mareschal, it's that county-mob back to back. Majuba mountain and Mons Cherubim and spreaded mats for Sydney Street East, and come to Bisley for a Silver Dish. It's R.SM. O'Grady says, it's the soldier's best friend if you care for the working parts and let us be 'aving those springs released smartly in Company billets on wet forenoons and clickerty-click and one up the spout and you men must really cultivate the habit of treating this weapon with the very greatest care and there should be a healthy rivalry among you—it should be a matter of very proper pride and
Marry it man! Marry it!
Cherish her, she's your very own.
Coax it man coax it—it's delicately and ingeniously made—it's an instrument of precision—it costs us tax-payers, money—I want you men to remember that.
Fondle it like a granny—talk to it—consider it as you would a friend—and when you ground these arms she's not a rooky's gas-pipe for greenhorns to tarnish.
You've known her hot and cold.
You would choose her from among many.
You know her by her bias, and by her exact error at 300, and by the deep scar at the small, by the fair flaw in the grain, above the lower sling-swivel—
but leave it under the oak.

—David Jones, In Parenthesis (1937)