the creeping umbral shadow

[mountain_laurel]

about 10 minutes to totality, i'm sitting here on a blanket in the parking lot of my apartment building, under the big tree outside my apartment. no one else is about, all the windows are dark, and it's very peaceful, just me, the crickets, and the neighbors' cat. i've been watching the eclipse since it began. so beautiful.

conditions are ideal; the weather is lovely, the sky perfectly clear, vantage point of an eclipse. the shadowed part of the moon is already looking a bit orange, and there's only a sliver of white left... vanishing so quickly.

i can completely understand why the ancients attributed such significance to these events. it's hard to imagine what it must have seemed like to them, not knkowing what was happening.

totality. beautiful.

now it's a half-hour to maximum eclipse and the moon has turned a lovely shade of russet; it looks almost like a glowing ember. glorious. i've never seen such an amazing eclipse. i'm just starting to see light creeping around the very edge of the darker side now... soon enough there'll be a full-on corona. i feel so lucky to be seeing this. i'm hopelessly nightshifted, i've been falling to sleep between 7 and 8 a.m. most mornings, so i'm not even tired.

ten minutes to maximum eclipse. someone just let their dog out, but didn't come out themselves... it's amazing that people don't even know this is happening right up there in the sky. the guy who let his dog out just came onto his balcony and asked if i could see the moon. i told him how close it is to maximum eclipse. then he asked if i'd seen his dog. he hasn't come out to see the eclipse, and it's not visible from the balconies. i can't believe anyone wouldn't want to see this if they were awake for it.

silly people.

and we are just about at maximum eclipse, right on time. amazing. i have never seen anything quite like it. i guess it's time to wrap this up, though, although i think i'll stay out here and watch a bit longer. it would be a pity to miss a moment of it. this has been meredith reporting from a parking lot in the south austin. g'night, everybody.

Comments

[rattleback.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the report. Conditions in DC (partial cloud cover, streetlights, a horizon six stories higher than it used to be, damn inconvenient local moonset) made it not worth the trip to the roof this time.

[loosestrife.livejournal.com]

I'd been out till three the previous night, then up for work, and despite my best intentions I fell asleep. So I missed it.

Agreed about beautiful and strange and significant-looking. I've always stayed up for them before.

[polyonymy.livejournal.com]

Laws yes! Sorry to miss this one.

[scothen-krau.livejournal.com]

Jealousy. Right here.

[madbodger.livejournal.com]

"the" wouth austin? Who are you, Miss South Carolina?

note to self, opine means comment lol

[jixel.livejournal.com]

hey that's awesome. i forgot to watch the eclipse! well my eyes were probably closed n i was asleep, so we'll just say i experienced a total consciousness eclipse!

that said, your blog is very nice so i hope to actually write things someday and not just post silly cartoons n stuf xo.

Re: note to self, opine means comment lol

[merde.livejournal.com]

ironically, i feel like i've been falling down on the job rather tragically, since i hardly post at all anymore compared to how i used to. can no one rid me of this troublesome black dog?

anyway, i'm glad you like my blog. and i got your text message, but when trying to reply didn't work because it came from lj, i became hopelessly befuddled and couldn't figure out what to do next, so i decided to do nothing. this is my default behavior, because somewhere in my twisted brain, i firmly (and wrongly) believe that if i don't DO anything, nothing will HAPPEN to me.

thanks, anyway; i'm glad you're enjoying the blog, despite its relative sparseness these days.

[2wanda.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the report. I was up at about 3:30am and saw a bit of the eclipse, but was too tired to stay up. Now I'm sorry that I didn't prop my eyes open with toothpicks or something.