i tethered my horse by heaven's pool

actually there's something i've been meaning to do ever since i read my first nooteboom - i wanted to go back to the early literature that i know very little about - chu ci especially - and read that thoroughly - with proper guidance, and research. (what this has to do with nooteboom is that the old chinese professor in the following story was a qu yuan scholar and he quoted from li sao which i was embarrassed i had never read when nooteboom had!) if my mother has time she might be able to read it with me - provided if she doesn't lose her patience with me - she suffers no fools, particularly if that happened to be me - i sometimes think my lack of chinese literary background must be a disappointment to her. how did i start out so promising, only to lose my languages so quickly? but we won't go into that, or i might break down and bawl.