-Jan 31st. Yesterday I got my Icelandic driver`s license, but they took away my Massachusetts one, not allowed to keep it. I don`t know if they`d return it should I visit later in the year which I plan on doing. Anyway, glad to have gotten this over with for one simple reason: a visitor`s license expires after six months (I`m past that stage), and if I get stopped for a violation or worse, an accident, I might be in trouble.

-Before going to the police for the license I spent a great 1 ½ hour with Bjarni þor, the Lutheran priest whose ceremony I attended Sunday. More specifically, we got down to the business of reading and pronouncing Icelandic. Fortunately I`ve had experience, but nothing like an expert (Bþ was a teacher of Icelandic earlier). Throughout all these comings and goings I tuned into radio stations where talk could be found, simply to have in the background and pay attention when I could.

-I had coffee around noon with a friend at LIN whose daughter was expected to deliver a child that afternoon and whose mother, living in Okalahoma with her brother, is dying (she goes there Feb 9th for a week`s visit). She told me how strange it is to be situated between two extremes, birth and death, and that never can you make sense of them. Nothing new, of course, but these sentiments pop up here and there in many conversations even if the person isn`t immediately involved. If there are two extremes plus an intermediary state, is it possible to step outside or withdraw from them?

-Nataph: a Hebrew verb which means to distill, to prophesy. I came across in Amos today, and it has a honey/perfume connotation, slow-moving dropping as opposed to a quick drip-drip. Two examples from the Song of Songs, where else?: 1) `the mountains shall drop down new wine` [5.5] and 2) `your lips drop honey` [4.11].