Getting back to where we were before this diversion, you were saying, "To be like God or not to be like God" in what I take as an evasion of my question "What is God like?"

I have tried several times to impale you to some substantial pillar to stop you from dancing around what you really mean. I've tried gears with missing teeth, trial attributes of "god," and compliments, all of which you have dodged.

Now I resort to classification with its inevitable angerment. You are a Taoist and your god is Tao. Tao is nameless; if you call it something, it hides. Tao is before concepts, before individual things. And in keeping with where I am saying this,
taoists believe numbers exist by virtue of the universe of numbers - because they are.

Unless you straighten up and say something substantial about this God you claim, I shall be forced to post a poem entitled, "The God of Alchemy."

A new movement started in third-century China, called symbolic alchemy. Alchemists started giving up the poisonous chemicals they'd been prescribing in the conscious world, and began applying symbols for them in a kinder etherial world, a kind of dream world. What are the symbols in your dreams?

I think I'd be a cool mom, too. But I'm not one. I'd probably need my kid's guidance and supervision

I always have to read your comments about four times. Even then, it's often a guess. While I see the possibility of this being about a mother being tricked by her kids, I had no such thing in mind. But I rather like being multilingual unknowingly.

I agree that "the" in the first verse can take a hike. The rest of the the's, however, seem needed in order to be specific.

You always make more of me than I am. Thanks.

I suppose I should say thanks. But it’s like having built my dream house, and after taking you on a grand tour, I ask your opinion.

“I like the adorable footprints you left all around as you were building it,” you say.

Now that's a high blow. You mean I could just as well post my diary entries, and rebut zodiac, and be better esteemed in your judgement as to slave over these 200 odd poems?

Dovina’s Diary, March 20, 2006:

Ah, yes, the morning mail and another dispatch from Mr. Zodiac. The question is whether to answer it, giving the appearance of dialog, (which, if history repeats, will really be two intersecting monologs), or to ignore another assertion of my incompetence as a human being. It is both gratifying to know he cares, and irritating to see it go on this way, with no more apparent understanding of me than he showed in those year-old diatribes of his.

He’s very persistent. “Which would you rather be, Dovina, a child caught in a magician’s spell, or the magician casting it?” Silly me, I’ve sometimes answered his questions, knowing he’ll take my answer off on a tangent.

It’s sweet, really, the way he keeps on, as if hoping, even after all these months, that I’ll follow him to Arabia on an invitation to Paris.

I imagine him telling some coffee-house crony about me, and the crony saying, “Is she a nut?” and him weighing a stack of my Poemranker comments and poems in his hand, saying, “I’m not sure.”

When you correspond with someone, you begin to form impressions. You wonder whether the impressions are correct. “Certainly not a beauty. Long, pointed nose? Brown beady eyes? No, I think more . . . probing. Pushy.” I imagine his impressions of me running along these lines, rather than the harsh nouns and adjectives he writes to describe me.

No, I don’t believe I’ll answer this time.

A metaphor if you wish. But to assert a little Jewish mutha or a single doctor who might have tried surgery - absurd!

There's a tooth missing in the mesh of our gears. We keep coming full circle on these issues about God, and I can't figure out why. I enjoy dialog more than interslacig monologs, and most of our conversation is dialog, yet we seem unable to get to some key issue. What the hell is the issue here, anyway?

Of course they do, unless you live in the backwoods of some northeastern state where snake oil and snake charming are both parts of divine healing. No, I meant "credentials" as in lines, i.e., "Your necklace looks expensive."

Bah? Is not the act this doctor puts on for his patients akin to charming a snake. After all skill and educatioin lie in shambles at your feet, what is lef, my good man, but to try and charm them. Okay, maybe it's a woman's take on some of the credentials I've been handed over the years.

I do wish your entertainment to continue. Where is my adoring adversary anyway? I have the perfect answer for him, regardless of his question.

Thanks. It's based on what a doctor told me about his internship. He felt guilty about performing surgeries where he had no experience except as an assistant, yet he felt that without practice, he'd never become good.

"The best of possible care" is what all patients want. Maybe I could word it better.