Sonequa Martin-Green

            It snowed hard overnight and through Sunday morning and so it was pretty white outside during song practice. I was glad this storm happened on the weekend so that they have a chance to clear the roads by Monday for my bike ride to class. The forecast says it’ll be cold but at least it’s not supposed to snow tomorrow.

            I updated my journal and posted the account of my Saturday Food Bank Adventure.

            I worked on a new poem called “Evangelikaraoke”:

Near the subway entrance

a man was preaching by proxy

through an audio player blasting

from his shoulder bag.

The deep voice was fatherly,

well-practiced and professional

as it warned that free sexuality

causes toxic thoughts

that destroy religion,

faith, family and culture.

I must say that I’ve never come a cross

such a lazy preacher

He should have at least memorized

and lip-synced the sermon.

I must find someone

to be swayed by his second hand argument

on my behalf

            I read up to page 62 of Thomas De Quincey’s “Confessions of an English Opium Eater”. So far it has some funny moments but I’d expected something more visionary. Eight pages later he got a bit more into describing his opium induced dreams. The last nine pages of the story bring the dreams to a crescendo. Overall I was disappointed as it has far more verbosity than substance.

            In the evening I weighed myself and I was at 93.5 kilos and so I’m 700 grams lighter than I was a week ago.

            I started reading Thomas De Quincey’s “The English Mail Coach”. It’s much funnier and better written than “Confessions of An English Opium Eater”. He talks about how if one is wanted by the law the best place to live is on the mail coach because even the sheriff cannot risk treason by stopping the mail, even to catch a criminal. He also talks about flirting for a minute at a time with the coachman’s beautiful granddaughter whenever his back is turned.

            I had an egg, toast and a beer for dinner and watched the season premier of Star Trek Discovery.

            Spoiler alert!

            At the end of last season Discovery encounters the Enterprise in space, on which Burnham’s foster brother Spock serves under Captain Pike. At the beginning of this story Pike informs them that he is taking over command of Discovery while Enterprise is being repaired. They go to investigate strange signals coming from a distant asteroid that fluctuates between low and extreme gravity. Because of the fluctuations they can’t teleport and so they fly pods through a very dangerous debris field. One of the pods doesn’t make it and Pike’s pod is damaged and so is his ejection mechanisms. Burnham has the Discovery eject him remotely as she ejects and catches him. They land on the asteroid together in their suits. There is a Federation medical ship crashed on the asteroid and the only able bodied survivor is an engineer named Jett Reno. She is played very stiffly by Tig Notaro. She has kept the rest of the crew alive in parts for months. They get her and her crew off but Burnham gets trapped. She sees a winged humanoid coming for her but then Pike arrives and she is saved. The energy signals from the asteroid are off the charts and Tilly thinks it may be a new energy source and so they capture a large piece of it. When they rendezvous again with the Enterprise Burnham wants to see Spock but Pike tells her he’s taken leave. She goes to Spock’s quarters and discovers a mysterious message from him.

            There’s something I don’t trust about Captain Pike. Maybe he’s an alternate universe version of Pike.

            Burnham is played by Sonequa Martin-Green, who was on The Walking Dead for a couple of years. I never understood the appeal of that show. I watched a few episodes while doing laundry and it seemed like a cheap imitation of Lost with zombies added in. Aren’t there enough rotten people on TV?