Dream of the Dragon

Does resonance diminish over time? More often that not, probably.

An EKG revealed that I have striking respiratory sinus arrhythmia, as indicated by digital scribbles that looked quite a bit like polygraph readouts. I suspect this is part of the natural progression of my relationship with my dog, who has a clear and beautiful arrhythmic resting heart rate. Whippet hearts are like John Bonham drums in muffled miniature.

I sat on a black stool in a tiny white room, sealed and soundproofed, observed through glass by a nurse. From inside the booth, only her black, center-parted hair was visible, draped over a notepad. It felt a bit like Peter Venkman’s ESP tests, and a bit like an army screening room untouched since 1940. The latter may not be inaccurate. I was in there for a hearing test, though, and it lacked the excitement of either.

But, in the end, my hearing proved to be nearly perfect, and well beyond most humans in catching both high and low frequencies. Again, this is a product of Icarus and efforts to hear a deer before he does.

An old physicist – a caricature of the unkempt, graying, and slightly rotund scientist– stood in an academic hallway talking to a student as I walked past. “The inside word is that they’ve seen promising glimmers of a dark matter particle,” he said.

Two broken branches, no thicker than a thumb, had been broken and twisted by the wind. They hung from hardier branches, swaying just inches off the ground, forming an unmistakable ‘4’.

And I came to appreciate the softer side of the Demon Princess of Pomerania – often the life of the party, but seldom the belle of the ball. She’s a real heartbreaker.

Helena Bonham Carter, somehow mistaken for Helen Mirren.