If you didn't think I was kooky before, this one will probably do it.
So I've told you before that I went through a New Age phase when I was searching for "My Path" back in my early 30s. I had stopped attending an Evangelical church in my mid-20s, but I was still looking around for a spiritual practice that worked for me.
When we moved to Montana, I found a great group of like-minded friends, and we tried all kinds of stuff. Some of it was bizarre and off-the-wall, some of it was genuinely moving. We learned about crystals and stones, we dried herbs and combined them for our own personal herbal magyk, we made deerskin-covered hoop drums and had drumming nights, we learned to do rituals based on the correspondences of the four elements/directions, we learned about tarot and had our astrological charts made, we had our chakras balanced and we did guided meditations to recover our past life experiences.
We met weekly for awhile with a woman who channeled "the Christ energy" (remember Selena?), we went to hear lectures by a guy who passed along wisdom from ancient Sumerian Sanskrit texts. We went to New Moon rituals off and on for a couple of years led by a woman who channeled the goddess Binah (a freaking goddess who gave a friend advice about starting up her new business, down to the business name and the logo)(if I were a goddess, I guarantee I would have better things to do than think about somebody else's business cards). I'm sure that's not even the whole list. It's just what I remember off the top of my head.
But in the end, it was a little too out-there for me. I remember one time just starting to laugh in exasperation when one of my New Age friends brought up something about wisdom from the ancient Atlanteans. "Do we have to fall for every single thing?" I asked her. "Do we just throw skepticism to the wind and believe every crazy idea anybody tells us?" and she looked at me blankly, because somebody she knew had received wisdom from the ancient Atlanteans and she didn't see any reason to question that. But I did.
Some of the things I learned were really meaningful to me, and some of it I still use, although I've incorporated it into a more traditional set of beliefs (more about that another time). And some of it was batshit crazy. I don't see those folks anymore, partly because I never quite fit in --I was there more out of curiosity than because I really believed this stuff, and I refused to completely give up my skepticism or my education. I was fascinated and often inspired, but I picked through everything and only kept the things that made sense to me.
But the main reason I don't see those friends anymore is simply because most of them moved away. I miss them. Even though my skepticism kept me on the outskirts of the group, it's the only time in my life I've found a group of people who were similarly dedicated to figuring things out--spiritual things. Why are we here? What does it mean to be a spiritual being? When you join a small group at a church, the discussions tend to be bound by the dogma of the church. Both the blessing and the eventual end of my involvement with the New Age folks stemmed from the idea that there were no boundaries. We were willing to explore just about anything. Ultimately the "All Light All the Time" philosophy didn't cut it for me, but sometimes I miss those days and those friends. I really do. There was a lot of joyful exuberant enthusiasm for spiritual pursuits that I've never encountered anywhere else.
And once again I've spent so long typing out the setup that I haven't made it to the thing I was going to say. But this is probably long enough for today.
(This has been sitting in my drafts folder for over a month, because I know some of you have no patience with this kind of stuff. But my well of things-to-blog-about has run dry, so here you go. Don't leave. Please.)
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Friday, June 14, 2013
Riffday: expressing multiple attitudes simultaneously
1. PellMel and I went to Bozeman last weekend to find her an apartment. Success! Everything is so much cheaper than it was when she was renting in Seattle that really, it felt like everything we saw was awesome. We had a great time, but it was many-mucho hours in the car. My butt hurts. Ever the audiobook fans, we listened to Divergent by Veronica Roth. It made the time go by but it seemed so derivative--how many YA books now have started with some kind of sorting/choosing ceremony? The Hunger Games, City of Ember, The Giver, even Harry Potter. It just seemed like a re-hash of all the post-apocalyptic novels out there. PellMel liked it better than I did, though, so maybe I just wasn't in the mood.
2. So, when I went in to talk to the Continuing Ed people about teaching non-credit classes, they asked me if I would be interested in teaching "senior seminars," which are courses that meet weekly for three weeks about topics (presumably) of interest to senior citizens. I said Sure!! and then they e-mailed me a few days later and asked if I would teach Native American Montana literature. *pause* ummm... okaaay.... I guess? So I did what I always do when faced with something I need to learn fast, which is start googling and then read like a madwoman. I went to the library yesterday afternoon and came home with a two-foot high stack of books. I suspect I will be reading Native American lit all summer. I have to get a course outline to them by the end of next week, puh-leez let me know if you have any advice. Since they also approved the two courses I proposed before, I'm on tap to teach three entirely different topics in the space of about two and a half months in the fall. Yikes. It never rains but it pours.
3. I never did a May reading report, did I? Probably because I didn't read all that much. The month started with that trip to D.C., in honor of which I read A Very Short Introduction to the Supreme Court (by Linda Greenhouse), which was actually pretty interesting and informative. For some reason I've always been fascinated by the Supreme Court. Etiquette and Espionage (Gail Carriger) was the book that broke my New Year's resolution to not buy any novels this year. It was fun. It's a young adult novel about a girl who thinks she's being sent away to finishing school but really it's a school for spies-in-training. It's a terrific idea, but I found myself wishing she had spent more time fleshing out what was being taught at the school. I suspect she was trying to avoid creating Hogwarts-for-spies (although she kind of did anyway)(not that I minded). It's not the world's best writing, but if you want a fun book to read on vacation, it will fill the bill. The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan. I enjoyed The Lightning Thief and its sequels, and Lost Hero is the start of a new series set in the same world. It started out well, but in the end it was disappointing. Riordan sadly seems to have joined the ranks of the write-a-book-every-six-months crowd-- Lost Hero felt really boilerplate. It had a few good moments, but it didn't interest me enough to convince me to move on to the sequel. It occurred to me that it read more like an outline for a movie than an actual novel. You don't need a beautifully written book if you can make a multi-million dollar movie deal and then let the movie makers do your work for you. I'm completely positive that I read more books than that during the month of May but I can't think of a single other thing at the moment other than re-reads.
4. The chickens are back to laying 5-6 eggs per day again. I'm considering going over to the the mall and leaving eggs in any car with the windows open.
5. We finally made it to see Star Trek: Into Darkness this week. I loved it. It way exceeded my expectations. We made the kids sit through Wrath of Khan and "The Menagerie" parts 1 & 2 a couple of weeks ago (and also "The City at the Edge of Forever" which is my favorite original series episode), and we may have a couple of nascent Star Trek fanatics on our hands. Not that we mind. We can spend all next winter watching ST reruns.
6. Have I ever told you that I have a Superman thing? More about that another time, maybe. I'm half-dreading, half-anticipating the new Superman movie that comes out this weekend. We'll see.
7. I adapted the post I wrote about joy a couple of weeks ago and it is up at the WEBS blog today. I cleaned it up a bit and added a couple of thoughts, check it out if you have time! Have a great weekend!
2. So, when I went in to talk to the Continuing Ed people about teaching non-credit classes, they asked me if I would be interested in teaching "senior seminars," which are courses that meet weekly for three weeks about topics (presumably) of interest to senior citizens. I said Sure!! and then they e-mailed me a few days later and asked if I would teach Native American Montana literature. *pause* ummm... okaaay.... I guess? So I did what I always do when faced with something I need to learn fast, which is start googling and then read like a madwoman. I went to the library yesterday afternoon and came home with a two-foot high stack of books. I suspect I will be reading Native American lit all summer. I have to get a course outline to them by the end of next week, puh-leez let me know if you have any advice. Since they also approved the two courses I proposed before, I'm on tap to teach three entirely different topics in the space of about two and a half months in the fall. Yikes. It never rains but it pours.
3. I never did a May reading report, did I? Probably because I didn't read all that much. The month started with that trip to D.C., in honor of which I read A Very Short Introduction to the Supreme Court (by Linda Greenhouse), which was actually pretty interesting and informative. For some reason I've always been fascinated by the Supreme Court. Etiquette and Espionage (Gail Carriger) was the book that broke my New Year's resolution to not buy any novels this year. It was fun. It's a young adult novel about a girl who thinks she's being sent away to finishing school but really it's a school for spies-in-training. It's a terrific idea, but I found myself wishing she had spent more time fleshing out what was being taught at the school. I suspect she was trying to avoid creating Hogwarts-for-spies (although she kind of did anyway)(not that I minded). It's not the world's best writing, but if you want a fun book to read on vacation, it will fill the bill. The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan. I enjoyed The Lightning Thief and its sequels, and Lost Hero is the start of a new series set in the same world. It started out well, but in the end it was disappointing. Riordan sadly seems to have joined the ranks of the write-a-book-every-six-months crowd-- Lost Hero felt really boilerplate. It had a few good moments, but it didn't interest me enough to convince me to move on to the sequel. It occurred to me that it read more like an outline for a movie than an actual novel. You don't need a beautifully written book if you can make a multi-million dollar movie deal and then let the movie makers do your work for you. I'm completely positive that I read more books than that during the month of May but I can't think of a single other thing at the moment other than re-reads.
4. The chickens are back to laying 5-6 eggs per day again. I'm considering going over to the the mall and leaving eggs in any car with the windows open.
5. We finally made it to see Star Trek: Into Darkness this week. I loved it. It way exceeded my expectations. We made the kids sit through Wrath of Khan and "The Menagerie" parts 1 & 2 a couple of weeks ago (and also "The City at the Edge of Forever" which is my favorite original series episode), and we may have a couple of nascent Star Trek fanatics on our hands. Not that we mind. We can spend all next winter watching ST reruns.
6. Have I ever told you that I have a Superman thing? More about that another time, maybe. I'm half-dreading, half-anticipating the new Superman movie that comes out this weekend. We'll see.
7. I adapted the post I wrote about joy a couple of weeks ago and it is up at the WEBS blog today. I cleaned it up a bit and added a couple of thoughts, check it out if you have time! Have a great weekend!
Saturday, June 08, 2013
summer payoff
I spend so much time griping about the weather in March and April that I thought I should say in writing that it has been so spectacularly gorgeous here this past week that it's like paradise.
And an aside that may or may not be related: after spending most of March and April with a headache, I felt great during May and June is going pretty well, too. MadMax finished school on Wednesday, so it is officially summer around here. *happy happy*
Have a good weekend!
And an aside that may or may not be related: after spending most of March and April with a headache, I felt great during May and June is going pretty well, too. MadMax finished school on Wednesday, so it is officially summer around here. *happy happy*
Have a good weekend!
Thursday, June 06, 2013
rightly handling the word of truth, part 2
I think I've told you before that I spent my first two years of undergrad at an Evangelical college. While there, I took several semester-long Bible classes, and I loved them. Within the confines of what they were allowed to teach, those guys (because they were all guys) were amazingly innovative and thoughtful. I've been grateful for the experience ever since.
I remember one professor telling us the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, and pointing out that they were the very first humans to take the word of God and embellish it. God tells Adam (before Eve is created) that he should not eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, because if he does, he will surely die.
Then God decides that it is not good for Adam to be alone, so he creates Eve to keep Adam company. Adam must have relayed God's instructions to her, because when the serpent--who was more crafty than the other beasts of the field--comes to visit, it is Eve who responds to his questions about what they are allowed to eat.
part 2 of part 2. Remember a few posts back when I talked about how uncomfortable it makes me to post personal stuff? So I'm burying this in the second half of part 2 of a post that most people are going to skip because ..... Because.
So part of the reason I keep harping on all this is because it drives me crazy that the whole basis of Christianity is love and grace, but we want to put all kinds of conditions on that. God* loves us and accepts us exactly as we are, entirely as we are, no ifs, no buts, no expectations for change. So why are we using words on a page, words that can be twisted and changed and embellished, to create divisions and boundaries, lines of demarcation about who is acceptable to God and who isn't? Well, yes, God loves you, BUT you have to change. Well, yes, God loves you, but you aren't OK unless you....(fill in the blank). Well, sure, God loves you, but he'd love you more if you fit in better.
That's not the deal. It's bullshit, you know? It's a load of crapola. Those lines are created by flawed human beings.
But you know what I've been figuring out this week? I haven't been willing to extend that same grace to myself. I know all that, and I'm willing to argue that on other people's behalf, but I've been assuming at some very basic, not-quite-conscious level that I'm no longer acceptable to God because I no longer fit inside the boundaries of what I used to believe.
I think I've started to get it. Twice this week I've burst into tears (thankfully when I was alone) as this began to sink in. It's occurring to me God might be OK with the way I've turned out. It's even possible that God might be OK with it when I poke and prod and question and decide I can't go along with the orthodox opinion anymore. I am still God's beloved child.
It surprises the hell out of me.
(to which I can hear my dad respond: "Literally." Ha.)
* as always, define God however you want here.
I remember one professor telling us the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, and pointing out that they were the very first humans to take the word of God and embellish it. God tells Adam (before Eve is created) that he should not eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, because if he does, he will surely die.
Then God decides that it is not good for Adam to be alone, so he creates Eve to keep Adam company. Adam must have relayed God's instructions to her, because when the serpent--who was more crafty than the other beasts of the field--comes to visit, it is Eve who responds to his questions about what they are allowed to eat.
The serpent said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”Did you catch the change? God didn't say they couldn't touch the fruit, just that they couldn't eat it. I realize that there are all kinds of interesting/difficult/maddening things about this story that we could be distracted by, but the professor's point was just this: the human tendency to take words that God intended one way and then to embellish them or twist them out of context or use them to make an irrelevant point-- that tendency has been there from the very beginning. When you start batting verses around, you have to be very careful. Me, included. We have to remember that the verses aren't the point. Which brings us to:
part 2 of part 2. Remember a few posts back when I talked about how uncomfortable it makes me to post personal stuff? So I'm burying this in the second half of part 2 of a post that most people are going to skip because ..... Because.
So part of the reason I keep harping on all this is because it drives me crazy that the whole basis of Christianity is love and grace, but we want to put all kinds of conditions on that. God* loves us and accepts us exactly as we are, entirely as we are, no ifs, no buts, no expectations for change. So why are we using words on a page, words that can be twisted and changed and embellished, to create divisions and boundaries, lines of demarcation about who is acceptable to God and who isn't? Well, yes, God loves you, BUT you have to change. Well, yes, God loves you, but you aren't OK unless you....(fill in the blank). Well, sure, God loves you, but he'd love you more if you fit in better.
That's not the deal. It's bullshit, you know? It's a load of crapola. Those lines are created by flawed human beings.
But you know what I've been figuring out this week? I haven't been willing to extend that same grace to myself. I know all that, and I'm willing to argue that on other people's behalf, but I've been assuming at some very basic, not-quite-conscious level that I'm no longer acceptable to God because I no longer fit inside the boundaries of what I used to believe.
I think I've started to get it. Twice this week I've burst into tears (thankfully when I was alone) as this began to sink in. It's occurring to me God might be OK with the way I've turned out. It's even possible that God might be OK with it when I poke and prod and question and decide I can't go along with the orthodox opinion anymore. I am still God's beloved child.
It surprises the hell out of me.
(to which I can hear my dad respond: "Literally." Ha.)
* as always, define God however you want here.
Wednesday, June 05, 2013
rightly handling the word of truth, part 1
(Remember a couple of posts back when I told you I was going to post some stuff that was pretty nit-picky about how Christians think? This one and the next one are those posts, so move right along if it's a topic that doesn't interest you.)
So I've been thinking about another post by John Shore, and it will work much better for what I was trying to say, which just kept getting more and more convoluted when I was using the homosexuality example. You know by now how strongly I feel about that issue, but it isn't the point I want to make in this post, and I kept getting distracted by how strongly I feel about it. Much to my fascination, Mr. Shore's blog has surprised me into realizing how capable I am of still thinking like an Evangelical. I don't respond as an Evangelical, but apparently I still remember how to think the way I did thirty years ago, because it happens automatically without me even trying to recall it.
Anyway. Mr. Shore's post is about whether or not Christians should marry non-Christians. Once you've left the Evangelical mindset behind, the question is only mildly thought-provoking. Of course Christians can marry non-Christians, and maybe that will be a problem in their marriage, or maybe not. Maybe it will be the least of their problems. There are inter-faith marriages all over the place. I know from talking to people in inter-faith marriages that it can be painful and stressful--one friend I know found it very hurtful that her husband wouldn't accompany her to church under any circumstances, even when it was very important to her that he do so (and they did end up divorcing, although for far more complicated reasons than just that). But other people I know seem to manage it OK.
Mr. Shore agrees, but he bases his argument on verses in the Bible that don't apply--and this is where I find myself still capable of thinking like an Evangelical. I completely agree with his point-- there are other factors more important than whether or not both partners are Christian in deciding whether or not to get married. But the verses he uses to illustrate his point are taken out of context. He quotes Paul in 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul is urging spouses who converted to Christianity after their marriage not to leave their partner, because through them their partner might be saved. Pulling the verses out of context, Mr. Shore points out that if Paul was OK with Christians and non-Christians being married, we should be, too.
Evangelicals use a different verse (2 Corinthians 6.14) to show what a bad idea it is to marry a non-Christian: "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?" But interestingly, in using that verse, Evangelicals are doing the same thing as Mr. Shore-- pulling it out of context. The verse doesn't refer to marriage--Paul is talking about idolators, and there is nothing about marriage, home, or family life in the surrounding verses. He is talking about ministry. But to the Evangelical mind, the restriction is clear enough and would certainly include marriage. In fact, the restriction is so universally taken for granted among Evangelicals that it is enough to just use the phrase "unequally yoked" to invoke the whole idea that Christians shouldn't marry non-Christians.
See how complicated this gets? It's one of the main reasons I left Evangelicalism and inerrancy* behind. Because once you start arguing from specific verses, it's difficult NOT to start splitting hairs, taking things out of context, and misconstruing the author's intent. If I were an Evangelical, Mr. Shore's argument would have no effect on me at all, because he's using verses out of context that are therefore irrelevant. But the verses that I used to form my opinion are also taken out of context. It's just that the Evangelical idea that Christians should not marry non-Christians is so firmly entrenched in tradition, nationalism, ethnography, and even racism that it comes across with the power of ordained truth. "Rightly handling the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2.15) turns out to be much more complicated than it sounds.
I'm not linking to Mr. Shore's post because I'm hoping he's disappeared by now. I don't want to argue with him, I just want to write out what I've been thinking about. If you want to read it, it's easy enough to find by googling John Shore.
*inerrancy: the belief that the Bible is the literal Word of God, and that every word of it is intended for today's reader just as if it had been written specifically for that reader.
So I've been thinking about another post by John Shore, and it will work much better for what I was trying to say, which just kept getting more and more convoluted when I was using the homosexuality example. You know by now how strongly I feel about that issue, but it isn't the point I want to make in this post, and I kept getting distracted by how strongly I feel about it. Much to my fascination, Mr. Shore's blog has surprised me into realizing how capable I am of still thinking like an Evangelical. I don't respond as an Evangelical, but apparently I still remember how to think the way I did thirty years ago, because it happens automatically without me even trying to recall it.
Anyway. Mr. Shore's post is about whether or not Christians should marry non-Christians. Once you've left the Evangelical mindset behind, the question is only mildly thought-provoking. Of course Christians can marry non-Christians, and maybe that will be a problem in their marriage, or maybe not. Maybe it will be the least of their problems. There are inter-faith marriages all over the place. I know from talking to people in inter-faith marriages that it can be painful and stressful--one friend I know found it very hurtful that her husband wouldn't accompany her to church under any circumstances, even when it was very important to her that he do so (and they did end up divorcing, although for far more complicated reasons than just that). But other people I know seem to manage it OK.
Mr. Shore agrees, but he bases his argument on verses in the Bible that don't apply--and this is where I find myself still capable of thinking like an Evangelical. I completely agree with his point-- there are other factors more important than whether or not both partners are Christian in deciding whether or not to get married. But the verses he uses to illustrate his point are taken out of context. He quotes Paul in 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul is urging spouses who converted to Christianity after their marriage not to leave their partner, because through them their partner might be saved. Pulling the verses out of context, Mr. Shore points out that if Paul was OK with Christians and non-Christians being married, we should be, too.
Evangelicals use a different verse (2 Corinthians 6.14) to show what a bad idea it is to marry a non-Christian: "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?" But interestingly, in using that verse, Evangelicals are doing the same thing as Mr. Shore-- pulling it out of context. The verse doesn't refer to marriage--Paul is talking about idolators, and there is nothing about marriage, home, or family life in the surrounding verses. He is talking about ministry. But to the Evangelical mind, the restriction is clear enough and would certainly include marriage. In fact, the restriction is so universally taken for granted among Evangelicals that it is enough to just use the phrase "unequally yoked" to invoke the whole idea that Christians shouldn't marry non-Christians.
See how complicated this gets? It's one of the main reasons I left Evangelicalism and inerrancy* behind. Because once you start arguing from specific verses, it's difficult NOT to start splitting hairs, taking things out of context, and misconstruing the author's intent. If I were an Evangelical, Mr. Shore's argument would have no effect on me at all, because he's using verses out of context that are therefore irrelevant. But the verses that I used to form my opinion are also taken out of context. It's just that the Evangelical idea that Christians should not marry non-Christians is so firmly entrenched in tradition, nationalism, ethnography, and even racism that it comes across with the power of ordained truth. "Rightly handling the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2.15) turns out to be much more complicated than it sounds.
I'm not linking to Mr. Shore's post because I'm hoping he's disappeared by now. I don't want to argue with him, I just want to write out what I've been thinking about. If you want to read it, it's easy enough to find by googling John Shore.
*inerrancy: the belief that the Bible is the literal Word of God, and that every word of it is intended for today's reader just as if it had been written specifically for that reader.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
what's happening around here? why it snowed this morning, thank you very much
I've been working on a post since Sunday and still can't figure out what I'm trying to say, so I'm bagging it for now and doing an update.
Anybody have a good book recommendation? Anything except not depressing. Actually, I don't think it's lack of a book that's the problem-- I have stacks of them around, another dozen or so on my Kindle, and I brought home six from the library yesterday. I just can't settle on anything. I've been re-reading old favorites, which is fun but not very satisfying. I signed up to take two six-week online courses, one on PHP programming and one on copyediting, and I just finished the first week. They're both interesting.
Job news: the community college decided it didn't need any new teachers this fall, so that's out. But there's still a chance that I could teach one or two non-credit continuing ed classes, so I turned that application in last week. You had to completely map out the course in the application, with lesson plans and reading lists. It was a blast. I suspect I had more fun thinking it up than actually teaching the course will be (if they even accept my ideas).
I did "What's Happening in YA Lit" (four weeks, 90 minutes each) and "The Art of the Short Story: The American Short Story since 1900" (five weeks, two hours each). Since I have nothing else interesting to tell you, here are the proposed reading lists. The idea is there will be a "required" reading assignment (as required as anything can be in a non-credit class), and several suggestions for people who have already read the required one or who want more to read. Let me know if you have other reading suggestions.
YALit: Week 1 (discussion), Week 2: [Realistic Fiction] The Fault in Our Stars (req), other suggestions: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Last Exit to Normal by Michael Harmon, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson; The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han, The Perks of Being aWallflower by Stephen Chbosky, Looking for Alaska by John Green. Week 3: [Fantastic Fiction] Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (req), How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Cycler by Lauren McLaughlin, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, Divergent by Veronica Roth, Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger. Week 4: [Non-Fiction, Humor, Graphic Novels] Teen Angst? Naaah by Ned Vizzini (req). Additional suggested books: Non Fiction- Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, Last Breath by Peter Stark, Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand, Following Atticus by Tom Ryan, They Call Me Coach by John Wooden, The Hungry Ocean by Linda Greenlaw. Humor-Dave Barry Slept Here by Dave Barry, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling. Illustrated novels- American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Maus series by Art Spiegelman, Sandman series by Neil Gaiman.
Short Story: Week 1 (discussion) Week 2: Discuss three short stories from acknowledged masters of the form. Possible selections include “Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton, “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, and “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield. Other possibilities include Faulkner, Fitzgerald, O’Connor, Katherine Ann Porter, or Richard Wright. Week 3: Discuss three short stories published from 1950 to 1990. Possible selections include “Where are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. Other possibilities include Alice Walker, John Cheever, John Updike, or Tobias Wolff. Week 4: Discuss three short stories from the last twenty-five years. Possible selections include “People Like That are the Only People Here” by Lorrie Moore, “Travels with the Snow Queen” by Kelly Link, “We Others” by Steven Millhauser. Other possibilities include Junot Diaz, Amy Hempel, Molly Giles, or George Saunders. Week 5: Montana Writers “Wild Plums” by Grace Stone Coates, “Days of Heaven” by Rick Bass, “Wilderness” by Rick DeMarinis, “Ranch Girl” by Maile Meloy. Other possibilities include William Kittredge, Thomas McGuane, David Long, Melanie Rae Thon.
I'm doing OK re: Cinder but waves of sadness still catch me by surprise 2-3 times a day. We've had beloved pets die twice before, so I thought I knew the drill and it wouldn't be so bad. And it's not as bad as it was the first time, with the border collie who was our first child. But still it's worse than I was expecting.
The snow in the post title has already turned to rain, but it was pretty dang depressing to wake up to snow falling this morning. I don't think the temps got below 32, though--at least I sincerely hope not since we have all kinds of flowers and veggies planted now.
Oh, and an update on John Shore (the blog I mentioned a couple of posts back). I thought if I was going to directly address his blog in my post, I should let him know, so I sent him a brief e-mail. He actually read the post, and wrote back to let me know that he does have a good understanding of the Evangelical mind. So, I thought I should pass that along. Since I only know my own (formerly) Evangelical mind, and since I left it behind I'm by definition atypical (thank God), it's entirely possible that he has a better understanding of it than I do. But then he wrote a post this week (about how logical Christianity is) that was so smug and weird that I'm considerably less enamored of him already. I still love the discussion in the comments on several posts, though, so I will probably keep reading. Everybody deserves an off day and a boring/strange/weird post or two, as this one certainly attests. Hugs to everybody, and if I don't get around to finishing that post by tomorrow, have a great holiday weekend.
Anybody have a good book recommendation? Anything except not depressing. Actually, I don't think it's lack of a book that's the problem-- I have stacks of them around, another dozen or so on my Kindle, and I brought home six from the library yesterday. I just can't settle on anything. I've been re-reading old favorites, which is fun but not very satisfying. I signed up to take two six-week online courses, one on PHP programming and one on copyediting, and I just finished the first week. They're both interesting.
Job news: the community college decided it didn't need any new teachers this fall, so that's out. But there's still a chance that I could teach one or two non-credit continuing ed classes, so I turned that application in last week. You had to completely map out the course in the application, with lesson plans and reading lists. It was a blast. I suspect I had more fun thinking it up than actually teaching the course will be (if they even accept my ideas).
I did "What's Happening in YA Lit" (four weeks, 90 minutes each) and "The Art of the Short Story: The American Short Story since 1900" (five weeks, two hours each). Since I have nothing else interesting to tell you, here are the proposed reading lists. The idea is there will be a "required" reading assignment (as required as anything can be in a non-credit class), and several suggestions for people who have already read the required one or who want more to read. Let me know if you have other reading suggestions.
YALit: Week 1 (discussion), Week 2: [Realistic Fiction] The Fault in Our Stars (req), other suggestions: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Last Exit to Normal by Michael Harmon, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson; The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han, The Perks of Being aWallflower by Stephen Chbosky, Looking for Alaska by John Green. Week 3: [Fantastic Fiction] Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (req), How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Cycler by Lauren McLaughlin, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, Divergent by Veronica Roth, Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger. Week 4: [Non-Fiction, Humor, Graphic Novels] Teen Angst? Naaah by Ned Vizzini (req). Additional suggested books: Non Fiction- Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, Last Breath by Peter Stark, Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand, Following Atticus by Tom Ryan, They Call Me Coach by John Wooden, The Hungry Ocean by Linda Greenlaw. Humor-Dave Barry Slept Here by Dave Barry, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling. Illustrated novels- American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Maus series by Art Spiegelman, Sandman series by Neil Gaiman.
Short Story: Week 1 (discussion) Week 2: Discuss three short stories from acknowledged masters of the form. Possible selections include “Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton, “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, and “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield. Other possibilities include Faulkner, Fitzgerald, O’Connor, Katherine Ann Porter, or Richard Wright. Week 3: Discuss three short stories published from 1950 to 1990. Possible selections include “Where are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. Other possibilities include Alice Walker, John Cheever, John Updike, or Tobias Wolff. Week 4: Discuss three short stories from the last twenty-five years. Possible selections include “People Like That are the Only People Here” by Lorrie Moore, “Travels with the Snow Queen” by Kelly Link, “We Others” by Steven Millhauser. Other possibilities include Junot Diaz, Amy Hempel, Molly Giles, or George Saunders. Week 5: Montana Writers “Wild Plums” by Grace Stone Coates, “Days of Heaven” by Rick Bass, “Wilderness” by Rick DeMarinis, “Ranch Girl” by Maile Meloy. Other possibilities include William Kittredge, Thomas McGuane, David Long, Melanie Rae Thon.
I'm doing OK re: Cinder but waves of sadness still catch me by surprise 2-3 times a day. We've had beloved pets die twice before, so I thought I knew the drill and it wouldn't be so bad. And it's not as bad as it was the first time, with the border collie who was our first child. But still it's worse than I was expecting.
The snow in the post title has already turned to rain, but it was pretty dang depressing to wake up to snow falling this morning. I don't think the temps got below 32, though--at least I sincerely hope not since we have all kinds of flowers and veggies planted now.
Oh, and an update on John Shore (the blog I mentioned a couple of posts back). I thought if I was going to directly address his blog in my post, I should let him know, so I sent him a brief e-mail. He actually read the post, and wrote back to let me know that he does have a good understanding of the Evangelical mind. So, I thought I should pass that along. Since I only know my own (formerly) Evangelical mind, and since I left it behind I'm by definition atypical (thank God), it's entirely possible that he has a better understanding of it than I do. But then he wrote a post this week (about how logical Christianity is) that was so smug and weird that I'm considerably less enamored of him already. I still love the discussion in the comments on several posts, though, so I will probably keep reading. Everybody deserves an off day and a boring/strange/weird post or two, as this one certainly attests. Hugs to everybody, and if I don't get around to finishing that post by tomorrow, have a great holiday weekend.
Monday, May 20, 2013
a break in our regularly scheduled programming....
(Trigger alert: Avoid this if a sad pet story is not what you need today.)
Sunday, May 19, 2013
me and Mr. Shore
I've run across a blog by a guy named John Shore, which would probably only appeal to a niche interest group, but I guess that's the way most blogs are. Mr. Shore is Christian, enthusiastically so, and also married and straight. Lately he has been writing quite a bit about the illogic of Christians opposing homosexual love. He has an interesting point of view, and I love reading it.
But I don't think he gets the Evangelical mindset. He didn't grow up as an Evangelical, he converted to Christianity as an adult. He seems to think that if you point out the logical fallacies in Evangelical thought, they will realize the error of their ways and lighten up. But that's not the way most Evangelicals think. For most Evangelicals, the fact that homosexuality is defined as a sin at some point in the Bible (any point) is enough.
They don't want to discuss it, think about it, or question their own assumptions and biases. In fact, in their minds, to do so would be moral weakness. If their arguments are illogical, they will simply tell you that what seems illogical to human beings is not necessarily illogical to God ("Because that which the world deems foolish in God is wiser than men's wisdom" 1 Cor 1.25). Their arguments don't have to make sense, because that would be relying on the human intellect instead of relying on faith in God's Word, and in their opinion, God's Word says that homosexuality is a sin.
All they need is to be able to point to a verse that says that backs up their belief --and in spite of what most liberal Christians want you to believe, there are verses that say that homosexuality is a sin (try Romans 1.26-27, or 1 Corinthians 6.9-10, for example). And that's all they need. God said it, I believe it, that settles it, a favorite Evangelical phrase goes. It's maddening and infuriating, because exactly what "God says" is often far from obvious (and has to do as much with what they've been taught to believe as it does with what the Bible actually says), but that's the way it is.
I haven't read everything he's written, but Mr. Shore seems to argue that Bible doesn't really say that homosexuality is a sin. I think that's the wrong way to approach it. Evangelicals love to get nit-picky about what Bible verses say, you'll never convince them that way. They'll just get more and more stubbornly attached to their interpretation of exactly what the Bible says in verse x, y, or z. What might work instead is examples of faithful, committed Christians, who go to church and participate in outreach and ministry, and study the Bible and pray, but don't believe in shaming, judging, or condemning other people because their sexuality doesn't match up with traditional heterosexual norms.
Actually, I think we should meet the madness head-on. Yes, the Bible says homosexuality is a sin, but I disagree. I am a Christian and I do not think this is a problem. God gave me a brain to use and I'm going to use it, and it just doesn't make sense that God would have a problem with monogamous LGBT couples.
But then. I started looking up verses in the Bible for this post, and you know what? Mr. Shore has a point. I hadn't done this in a long time--looked up all the references to homosexuality in the New Testament (I'm not worrying about the ones in the Old Testament, because if we have to follow Old Testament law, we're all in trouble. Read Galatians if you think Christians still need to keep Old Testament law.) Those two passages (Romans 1.26-27 and 1 Corinthians 6.9-10) are really the only problematic ones if you ask me, and as plenty of other people have said, Jesus never mentions it at all.
The rest of the references could very well be about sexual promiscuity or unspecified "unnatural" sexual acts rather than about gay-ness. It says a great deal about homophobia in our culture that it is possible to see the words "unnatural" and "unclean" and immediately assume that they refer to homosexuality. But the Jews probably had a far wider definition of those words, especially "unclean." There were many ways you could be unclean that have nothing to do with homosexuality--by violating certain dietary restrictions, or having sex with your wife while she was menstruating, for example.
-------------------
So this has been sitting in my draft box for a month now because I didn't really come to any conclusions, it ended up with me just thinking out loud. (Well, the internet equivalent of thinking "out loud.") I have no idea what the best approach is. But there are going to be several of these this week (I hope), not necessarily about homosexuality but about Christianity--some of them inspired by further reading of John Shore's blog--so here you go. I know for those of you who aren't interested in Christianity this and some of the others this week are going to be far more information than you want, so feel free to tune out.
But I don't think he gets the Evangelical mindset. He didn't grow up as an Evangelical, he converted to Christianity as an adult. He seems to think that if you point out the logical fallacies in Evangelical thought, they will realize the error of their ways and lighten up. But that's not the way most Evangelicals think. For most Evangelicals, the fact that homosexuality is defined as a sin at some point in the Bible (any point) is enough.
They don't want to discuss it, think about it, or question their own assumptions and biases. In fact, in their minds, to do so would be moral weakness. If their arguments are illogical, they will simply tell you that what seems illogical to human beings is not necessarily illogical to God ("Because that which the world deems foolish in God is wiser than men's wisdom" 1 Cor 1.25). Their arguments don't have to make sense, because that would be relying on the human intellect instead of relying on faith in God's Word, and in their opinion, God's Word says that homosexuality is a sin.
All they need is to be able to point to a verse that says that backs up their belief --and in spite of what most liberal Christians want you to believe, there are verses that say that homosexuality is a sin (try Romans 1.26-27, or 1 Corinthians 6.9-10, for example). And that's all they need. God said it, I believe it, that settles it, a favorite Evangelical phrase goes. It's maddening and infuriating, because exactly what "God says" is often far from obvious (and has to do as much with what they've been taught to believe as it does with what the Bible actually says), but that's the way it is.
I haven't read everything he's written, but Mr. Shore seems to argue that Bible doesn't really say that homosexuality is a sin. I think that's the wrong way to approach it. Evangelicals love to get nit-picky about what Bible verses say, you'll never convince them that way. They'll just get more and more stubbornly attached to their interpretation of exactly what the Bible says in verse x, y, or z. What might work instead is examples of faithful, committed Christians, who go to church and participate in outreach and ministry, and study the Bible and pray, but don't believe in shaming, judging, or condemning other people because their sexuality doesn't match up with traditional heterosexual norms.
Actually, I think we should meet the madness head-on. Yes, the Bible says homosexuality is a sin, but I disagree. I am a Christian and I do not think this is a problem. God gave me a brain to use and I'm going to use it, and it just doesn't make sense that God would have a problem with monogamous LGBT couples.
But then. I started looking up verses in the Bible for this post, and you know what? Mr. Shore has a point. I hadn't done this in a long time--looked up all the references to homosexuality in the New Testament (I'm not worrying about the ones in the Old Testament, because if we have to follow Old Testament law, we're all in trouble. Read Galatians if you think Christians still need to keep Old Testament law.) Those two passages (Romans 1.26-27 and 1 Corinthians 6.9-10) are really the only problematic ones if you ask me, and as plenty of other people have said, Jesus never mentions it at all.
The rest of the references could very well be about sexual promiscuity or unspecified "unnatural" sexual acts rather than about gay-ness. It says a great deal about homophobia in our culture that it is possible to see the words "unnatural" and "unclean" and immediately assume that they refer to homosexuality. But the Jews probably had a far wider definition of those words, especially "unclean." There were many ways you could be unclean that have nothing to do with homosexuality--by violating certain dietary restrictions, or having sex with your wife while she was menstruating, for example.
-------------------
So this has been sitting in my draft box for a month now because I didn't really come to any conclusions, it ended up with me just thinking out loud. (Well, the internet equivalent of thinking "out loud.") I have no idea what the best approach is. But there are going to be several of these this week (I hope), not necessarily about homosexuality but about Christianity--some of them inspired by further reading of John Shore's blog--so here you go. I know for those of you who aren't interested in Christianity this and some of the others this week are going to be far more information than you want, so feel free to tune out.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
more than you wanted to know....
Well, I am chatty Kathy this week. What happened? Last week I almost decided to stop blogging, this week I can't shut up. You know what? I just decided to chalk this up to menopause. I'm still close enough to it that I can blame the emotional rollercoaster on hormones, right? RIGHT? *grabs poor defenseless reader by the lapels and glares* ummmm, yeah. Right.
OK, then.
Moving on.
So I overcame temptation this week and did NOT buy a new book. The rules have evolved since the last time we discussed this (my new year's resolution to not buy any new books in 2013). I bought a couple of guide books for Southern Utah before we went on spring break and decided that the resolution only applied to fiction. And I bought two kindle books-- one to support a friend of a friend's newbie writing career, and one because it was an author I like and it was on sale for ninety-nine cents. But other than that, I haven't paid money for any books this year.
Until yesterday, when one of my online acquaintances announced the book for the online book club she hosts at her blog every month. It's one I want to read, and I enjoy participating in her monthly discussions. Then two or three people chimed in saying that they loved the book (Hi, Karen!). So there I was on Amazon with my finger hovering over the "send to my kindle" button.
But I resisted. I may still give in (I've already made it far longer than I thought I would on this resolution), but I decided to at least wait. That's one of the keys to dealing with temptation, you know. You don't tell yourself you can't do it, you just tell yourself to wait. I'm on the waiting list at the library for a copy, and the date of the discussion is still two weeks away. We'll see.
In other news..... I went to see Lynne, my alternative medicine friend, and she said to just give in to the tiredness and let my body rest. Everybody needs a break sometimes, she said. She also pointed out that I'm probably still recovering from three years of hyper-stress because of grad school. So I will try to stop berating myself for not being particularly productive, effective, or useful, and relax.
And we're blaming this all on hormones, anyway, right?
I googled around and found this creepy Chatty Kathy commercial on youtube. How did any of us who were kids in the 60s turn out sane? *insert horror movie music* OR DID WE?
OK, then.
Moving on.
So I overcame temptation this week and did NOT buy a new book. The rules have evolved since the last time we discussed this (my new year's resolution to not buy any new books in 2013). I bought a couple of guide books for Southern Utah before we went on spring break and decided that the resolution only applied to fiction. And I bought two kindle books-- one to support a friend of a friend's newbie writing career, and one because it was an author I like and it was on sale for ninety-nine cents. But other than that, I haven't paid money for any books this year.
Until yesterday, when one of my online acquaintances announced the book for the online book club she hosts at her blog every month. It's one I want to read, and I enjoy participating in her monthly discussions. Then two or three people chimed in saying that they loved the book (Hi, Karen!). So there I was on Amazon with my finger hovering over the "send to my kindle" button.
But I resisted. I may still give in (I've already made it far longer than I thought I would on this resolution), but I decided to at least wait. That's one of the keys to dealing with temptation, you know. You don't tell yourself you can't do it, you just tell yourself to wait. I'm on the waiting list at the library for a copy, and the date of the discussion is still two weeks away. We'll see.
In other news..... I went to see Lynne, my alternative medicine friend, and she said to just give in to the tiredness and let my body rest. Everybody needs a break sometimes, she said. She also pointed out that I'm probably still recovering from three years of hyper-stress because of grad school. So I will try to stop berating myself for not being particularly productive, effective, or useful, and relax.
And we're blaming this all on hormones, anyway, right?
I googled around and found this creepy Chatty Kathy commercial on youtube. How did any of us who were kids in the 60s turn out sane? *insert horror movie music* OR DID WE?
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
mother's day hike
The advantage of living here-- we could do this leaving at 2:30 in the afternoon and be home by 8:30, including stopping for root beer floats and burgers on the way home.
a river moving in you
I've been thinking lately about joy. I let joy leave my life, and for the past couple of months, I've been working on getting it back. I'm not miserable, and I'm not depressed. I'm still doing what I need to do, getting things done, taking care of my family and our animals and putting one foot in front of another. But there hasn't been much joy. This is a work in progress, I have no great conclusions to pass along here. Just several random thoughts, plus some quotes I found on The Google, and a hope that you will pass your ideas along to me.
an aside: since like everyone I did a mini happy dance when hyperboleandahalf reappeared on my feed, I want to say that none of this applies to someone who is truly depressed. After reading her description, I don't think I ever have been. If you are, you have my sympathy, and you can ignore this.
I think joy is different than happiness. Happiness comes when things are right, everything's coming up roses, you get a book contract or a promotion to the job you always wanted or a raise. Or you're on vacation. All it takes is a blow, something that goes wrong, vacation ends, to turn happiness into sadness, grief, or pain. And that's as it should be--the circle of life and all that.
But maybe joy is something different. It springs from life itself, from the gift of being alive, waking up to another day, a whole new world every single 24 hours. I think it has something to do with gratitude, with acknowledging that gift. It's #2 on the list of fruits of the Spirit in St. Paul's letter to the church at Galatia: "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control..." It seems to me it should be something that bubbles up of its own accord if we can manage to get out of its way.
If that's true, it should be possible to feel joy even when things aren't right, when things aren't going your way, when getting through the day feels like pushing Sisyphus's boulder up a hill. But I certainly haven't been feeling it lately.
Maybe part of it is slowing down, noticing. Colors, sounds, spring. The world is coming to life around me as I sit here typing in front of an open window.
Maybe part of it is taking a vacation from cynicism, from that dry, dreary, unshakeable belief that if anything bad can happen, it's going to happen, to me, at the worst possible moment. Because this is demonstrably not true.
Maybe part of it is lowering the bar on our expectations. We're Americans, we have a tremendous sense of entitlement. We believe that we're entitled to a great life, 100% health, a good job, a nice house, a car to drive, a happy childhood safely tucked away in our memories. We believe that we deserve ease, comfort, spa treatments, and chocolate for dessert. So we're not only disappointed but angry when things don't go the way we want. In much of the rest of the world, I suspect that three meals a day and a roof overhead is cause for contentment.
Maybe part of it is not taking the burden of changing the world too seriously. It's not like any specific one of us was given the job to change the world. Maybe each of us can let go of the burden now and then. We can do our part, and then let other people take over when we need a break.
Maybe part of it is developing a more robust sense of self, and also a healthy respect for the person I am. That way I wouldn't be dependent on the people around me in order to be able to be myself. I'd like to be able to say that I am who I am no matter what's going on around me. (cue Popeye.)
Maybe part of it is taking that most difficult step of faith and believing that we are just fine as we are, without any changes. I think part of my lack of joy recently has to do with realizing that I'm never going to become the amazing person I wish I was. I'm 51, almost 52. If it was going to happen, it would have happened by now. But the flip side of that is that by concentrating on that amazing person I wish I was, I miss the amazing person I am right now. If change is going to come, it needs to be motivated by joy, not the deadening belief that I'm a disaster and I'll only be a worthwhile person if I change.
I spotted a book on Paperback Swap a couple of weeks ago that may help: Second Innocence: Reconnecting with Joy and Wonder. Haven't read it yet, but I will pass along any gems of wisdom.
Some thoughts from others:
When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.
Tecumseh
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. --Rumi
Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. --Thich Nhat Hanh
"joy and sorrow are inseparable. . . together they come and when one sits alone with you . . remember that the other is asleep upon your bed." Kahil Gibran
And I found out that line I passed along last week is from Teddy Roosevelt: "Comparison is the thief of joy."
an aside: since like everyone I did a mini happy dance when hyperboleandahalf reappeared on my feed, I want to say that none of this applies to someone who is truly depressed. After reading her description, I don't think I ever have been. If you are, you have my sympathy, and you can ignore this.
I think joy is different than happiness. Happiness comes when things are right, everything's coming up roses, you get a book contract or a promotion to the job you always wanted or a raise. Or you're on vacation. All it takes is a blow, something that goes wrong, vacation ends, to turn happiness into sadness, grief, or pain. And that's as it should be--the circle of life and all that.
But maybe joy is something different. It springs from life itself, from the gift of being alive, waking up to another day, a whole new world every single 24 hours. I think it has something to do with gratitude, with acknowledging that gift. It's #2 on the list of fruits of the Spirit in St. Paul's letter to the church at Galatia: "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control..." It seems to me it should be something that bubbles up of its own accord if we can manage to get out of its way.
If that's true, it should be possible to feel joy even when things aren't right, when things aren't going your way, when getting through the day feels like pushing Sisyphus's boulder up a hill. But I certainly haven't been feeling it lately.
Maybe part of it is slowing down, noticing. Colors, sounds, spring. The world is coming to life around me as I sit here typing in front of an open window.
Maybe part of it is taking a vacation from cynicism, from that dry, dreary, unshakeable belief that if anything bad can happen, it's going to happen, to me, at the worst possible moment. Because this is demonstrably not true.
Maybe part of it is lowering the bar on our expectations. We're Americans, we have a tremendous sense of entitlement. We believe that we're entitled to a great life, 100% health, a good job, a nice house, a car to drive, a happy childhood safely tucked away in our memories. We believe that we deserve ease, comfort, spa treatments, and chocolate for dessert. So we're not only disappointed but angry when things don't go the way we want. In much of the rest of the world, I suspect that three meals a day and a roof overhead is cause for contentment.
Maybe part of it is not taking the burden of changing the world too seriously. It's not like any specific one of us was given the job to change the world. Maybe each of us can let go of the burden now and then. We can do our part, and then let other people take over when we need a break.
Maybe part of it is developing a more robust sense of self, and also a healthy respect for the person I am. That way I wouldn't be dependent on the people around me in order to be able to be myself. I'd like to be able to say that I am who I am no matter what's going on around me. (cue Popeye.)
Maybe part of it is taking that most difficult step of faith and believing that we are just fine as we are, without any changes. I think part of my lack of joy recently has to do with realizing that I'm never going to become the amazing person I wish I was. I'm 51, almost 52. If it was going to happen, it would have happened by now. But the flip side of that is that by concentrating on that amazing person I wish I was, I miss the amazing person I am right now. If change is going to come, it needs to be motivated by joy, not the deadening belief that I'm a disaster and I'll only be a worthwhile person if I change.
I spotted a book on Paperback Swap a couple of weeks ago that may help: Second Innocence: Reconnecting with Joy and Wonder. Haven't read it yet, but I will pass along any gems of wisdom.
Some thoughts from others:
When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.
Tecumseh
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. --Rumi
Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. --Thich Nhat Hanh
"joy and sorrow are inseparable. . . together they come and when one sits alone with you . . remember that the other is asleep upon your bed." Kahil Gibran
And I found out that line I passed along last week is from Teddy Roosevelt: "Comparison is the thief of joy."
Monday, May 13, 2013
blog update
Hi, y'all-- I have a couple of posts that need to go up but that probably aren't anything that you will find interesting (like how to get from Dulles to the Convention Center in Washington) (see? I told you), so I'm going to back post them just to get them up. Feel free to ignore.
Also, I need to go back and add labels to a whole bunch of posts. I thought that I could do this without republishing the post (on my end, it's just a matter of clicking in a checkbox), but the last time I did it, I noticed it popped back up to the top of my feed in Feedly. So, massive apologies, because when I get around to doing this there will be a flood of a dozen or more old posts, which are absolutely unchanged except for the labels. Sorry!! I will try to do better at remembering to label them when I originally post them.
Also, I need to go back and add labels to a whole bunch of posts. I thought that I could do this without republishing the post (on my end, it's just a matter of clicking in a checkbox), but the last time I did it, I noticed it popped back up to the top of my feed in Feedly. So, massive apologies, because when I get around to doing this there will be a flood of a dozen or more old posts, which are absolutely unchanged except for the labels. Sorry!! I will try to do better at remembering to label them when I originally post them.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
how to get from Dulles into Washington, D.C.
This will probably not interest my regular readers a bit, so my apologies. But for an airport as large as Dulles, it was surprisingly difficult to figure out how to get from the airport into the city. Even though I googled it ahead of time, I ended up just poking around Dulles after I got there until I figured it out. So I decided to write it out in the hopes that it will help out someone else.
I saved almost $200 by flying into Dulles (IAD) --which is about 30 miles from Washington, D.C. But the savings would have been practically wiped out by taking a taxi into the city for $70 each way, as most sources recommend. (Taking the taxi would be a bargain if you could split it up between 3-4 people, because you don't have to worry about switching between buses, trains, etc. and presumably the taxi would take you exactly where you need to go.)
So: In the baggage claim area, follow the signs to the Washington Flyer Bus. They're not exactly prominent, but if you're looking, they're not hard to find. You follow a ramp up to Door 4, where there is a ticket counter so you can buy a ticket. You can buy a one-way ticket for $10, or round-trip for $18. The bus comes about every half hour. The bus was a big, clean, uncrowded tour-type coach.
The Washington Flyer Bus will deposit you at the West Falls Church Metro Station, which is on the Orange Line of the Washington metro subway system. If you are planning to ride the Flyer bus back to Dulles again at the end of your trip, note where the bus drops you off. There is no ticket desk for the return trip, you just get on the bus when it pulls up and pay when you get back to Dulles.
The metro is pretty easy to figure out if you have any experience with public transportation. There are route maps and automated ticket machines inside the metro station--you can pay with cash or a credit or debit card. I needed to get to the convention center, which is the Mt. Vernon Square metro stop. At the bottom of the route map sign, there is a list with the fare to each other stop from your current location. You add a dollar to that amount and that's how much metro fare you need to purchase. I had to ride the orange line to L'Enfant Plaza, then switch to the green line to Mt. Vernon Square.
Total expense for getting into the city: less than $14. The downside: it took an hour and a half from the time I got on the Flyer bus. Note-- if you're going to be using the metro frequently during your trip, you can get a credit-card-like smart card, which saves you the $1/trip surcharge for using a paper card. If you're a complete newbie when it comes to public transportation, the metro website has lots of information for how to get around, try starting here.
Someone on the flyer bus told me that there is also a public transpo bus 5A that you can catch from either the L'Enfant Plaza metro station or the Rosslyn metro station to Dulles, but I didn't find out about it until too late to do it. Also, there are shared vans that you can use --there's a desk just outside of baggage claim, but since I didn't use them, can't comment on them. The method I've described above worked just fine, though, and was pretty cheap. It just took awhile.
I saved almost $200 by flying into Dulles (IAD) --which is about 30 miles from Washington, D.C. But the savings would have been practically wiped out by taking a taxi into the city for $70 each way, as most sources recommend. (Taking the taxi would be a bargain if you could split it up between 3-4 people, because you don't have to worry about switching between buses, trains, etc. and presumably the taxi would take you exactly where you need to go.)
So: In the baggage claim area, follow the signs to the Washington Flyer Bus. They're not exactly prominent, but if you're looking, they're not hard to find. You follow a ramp up to Door 4, where there is a ticket counter so you can buy a ticket. You can buy a one-way ticket for $10, or round-trip for $18. The bus comes about every half hour. The bus was a big, clean, uncrowded tour-type coach.
The Washington Flyer Bus will deposit you at the West Falls Church Metro Station, which is on the Orange Line of the Washington metro subway system. If you are planning to ride the Flyer bus back to Dulles again at the end of your trip, note where the bus drops you off. There is no ticket desk for the return trip, you just get on the bus when it pulls up and pay when you get back to Dulles.
The metro is pretty easy to figure out if you have any experience with public transportation. There are route maps and automated ticket machines inside the metro station--you can pay with cash or a credit or debit card. I needed to get to the convention center, which is the Mt. Vernon Square metro stop. At the bottom of the route map sign, there is a list with the fare to each other stop from your current location. You add a dollar to that amount and that's how much metro fare you need to purchase. I had to ride the orange line to L'Enfant Plaza, then switch to the green line to Mt. Vernon Square.
Total expense for getting into the city: less than $14. The downside: it took an hour and a half from the time I got on the Flyer bus. Note-- if you're going to be using the metro frequently during your trip, you can get a credit-card-like smart card, which saves you the $1/trip surcharge for using a paper card. If you're a complete newbie when it comes to public transportation, the metro website has lots of information for how to get around, try starting here.
Someone on the flyer bus told me that there is also a public transpo bus 5A that you can catch from either the L'Enfant Plaza metro station or the Rosslyn metro station to Dulles, but I didn't find out about it until too late to do it. Also, there are shared vans that you can use --there's a desk just outside of baggage claim, but since I didn't use them, can't comment on them. The method I've described above worked just fine, though, and was pretty cheap. It just took awhile.
Thursday, May 09, 2013
sneaky chickenz
The number of eggs we've been getting recently has really dropped off, but since we had way more eggs than we needed anyway, I wasn't really worrying about it. Turns out that they've been laying, just not in the coop. Look what I found this afternoon when I went to drag out the pots for my flowers:
Silly chickens.
I spent the weekend in Washington, D.C. with my mom and my sisters--we had a great trip. But I've spent the week catching up. Back soon.
Silly chickens.
I spent the weekend in Washington, D.C. with my mom and my sisters--we had a great trip. But I've spent the week catching up. Back soon.
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
nostalgia for the second wave
The history of feminism is usually defined by waves: the first wave was the era of the suffragettes, women fighting for the most basic rights--the right to vote, to own property, to hold a job; the second wave was the feminism of my college years, the era of fighting for equality--a woman can be just as good as a man at anything she wants to do; the third wave started somewhere around the 90s, and acknowledged that women's rights come in all different sizes, shapes, colors, races, and ethnicities.
In the 80s, we were all about getting rid of the trappings of femininity that had limited what we could do--the traditional women's roles of cooking and housekeeping and raising children took up so much time that you couldn't do anything else. We were all about convenience foods and day care and streamlined plans for cleaning the house (or not cleaning at all) because suddenly there was a whole world of things we'd rather do--write a software program or go for a hike or become a potter or work overtime to advance our careers.
All the old female pastimes seemed like a cage that was designed to hold us back. We wanted to be taken seriously, because we hadn't been before; we wanted to be judged on the merits of what we could do, not on how we looked or what we wore or (worst of all) what our husbands/bosses did. We wanted a level playing field with the men.
The obvious outward sign of this was clothing. When I was in early grade school in the 60s, girls were still required to wear dresses or skirts to school. The boys could run around the playground, hang from the monkey bars, and slide down the slide, but if you were wearing a dress, there were serious limitations to what you could do. Some of us figured out how to wear shorts under our dresses (Danskins were perfect because they fit snugly and didn't show), but even then you ended up with a bunch of fabric wadded up around your waist that boys just didn't have to deal with.
So when the second wave came along, most of us were overjoyed to switch to jeans, pants, gauchos (remember those?)--anything that didn't restrict our movement. Skirts and dresses became something that you wore to weddings, funerals, and job interviews. High heels were seen as a torture device designed by patriarchy to keep us looking good but unable to move. Fussy clothing--ruffles, lace, bows, puffs-- UGH. I wanted nothing to do with any of it.
So it was with a great deal of surprise that I and many other second wave feminists watched the third wave take up girl-y clothing and make it into its own kind of power. Girl power, grrrrl power, however you want to spell it-- you had the Spice Girls wearing 5-inch platform shoes and even though they were all adults, being unabashedly girly. Manicures that had to be fussed over, mini-skirts that kept you from being able to lean over, stiletto heels that would break the ankles of lesser humans--instead of signs of weakness and subservience, these became signs of female power. We can kick ass and look good doing it. We bring men to their knees.
There were, of course, many great things about this. First of all, it meant that this generation of women could take it for granted that they would be taken seriously, which is is something so profoundly wonderful that it brings tears to my eyes to think about it. They could wear flirty, feminine clothes, dress like an eight-year-old, a vamp, or a diva, and it didn't even seem to occur to them to worry that someone would ignore them or accuse them of sleeping their way to the top.
And there were lesser positives, too-- when I was in high school, having your bra strap showing was enough to send you red-faced and embarrassed to the restroom to stow it away again. By the mid 90s, camisoles were designed specifically to show your bra strap, and underwear came in vivid colors and animal prints--the whole intention was for it to be seen. And it was lot of fun to play dress-up and feel powerful doing it.
But there were also moments when I just shook my head--like one time I was wandering around the women's clothing section at REI and came across a bunch of tops intended for rock climbing that tied with a bow in back. Seriously? How can you be taken seriously as an athlete if your clothing ties in a bow? What if it came untied and presented a climbing hazard? But of course times had changed. No one thought about it like that anymore. I can already hear how a third waver would respond: Just because I climb with the guys doesn't mean I have to look like one.
Recently I've wondered if things have finally come full circle. I've been increasingly disturbed at the pictures that women post of themselves--or parts of themselves. Cleavage shots, shots of their butts, torso shots where their only coverage is an arm across their breasts. It's the same thing of course-- women feeling powerful in their bodies, and proud of how they look--and there's nothing wrong with that. I will admit to some prudish, eyebrow-raised reactions, but usually even I can tell that this isn't about prudery.
But it has struck me recently as a little odd that we've gone in the past thirty years from women being outraged that they might be judged for their tits and ass to now being insistent on being judged that way. If you use a cleavage shot as your profile picture, it almost demands that people see you as a pair of boobs.
It's not an observation that they would appreciate. They see it as a claiming of their own power to be able to revel in looking good. But as a former card-carrying member of the second wave, it just strikes me as odd.
In the 80s, we were all about getting rid of the trappings of femininity that had limited what we could do--the traditional women's roles of cooking and housekeeping and raising children took up so much time that you couldn't do anything else. We were all about convenience foods and day care and streamlined plans for cleaning the house (or not cleaning at all) because suddenly there was a whole world of things we'd rather do--write a software program or go for a hike or become a potter or work overtime to advance our careers.
All the old female pastimes seemed like a cage that was designed to hold us back. We wanted to be taken seriously, because we hadn't been before; we wanted to be judged on the merits of what we could do, not on how we looked or what we wore or (worst of all) what our husbands/bosses did. We wanted a level playing field with the men.
The obvious outward sign of this was clothing. When I was in early grade school in the 60s, girls were still required to wear dresses or skirts to school. The boys could run around the playground, hang from the monkey bars, and slide down the slide, but if you were wearing a dress, there were serious limitations to what you could do. Some of us figured out how to wear shorts under our dresses (Danskins were perfect because they fit snugly and didn't show), but even then you ended up with a bunch of fabric wadded up around your waist that boys just didn't have to deal with.
So when the second wave came along, most of us were overjoyed to switch to jeans, pants, gauchos (remember those?)--anything that didn't restrict our movement. Skirts and dresses became something that you wore to weddings, funerals, and job interviews. High heels were seen as a torture device designed by patriarchy to keep us looking good but unable to move. Fussy clothing--ruffles, lace, bows, puffs-- UGH. I wanted nothing to do with any of it.
So it was with a great deal of surprise that I and many other second wave feminists watched the third wave take up girl-y clothing and make it into its own kind of power. Girl power, grrrrl power, however you want to spell it-- you had the Spice Girls wearing 5-inch platform shoes and even though they were all adults, being unabashedly girly. Manicures that had to be fussed over, mini-skirts that kept you from being able to lean over, stiletto heels that would break the ankles of lesser humans--instead of signs of weakness and subservience, these became signs of female power. We can kick ass and look good doing it. We bring men to their knees.
There were, of course, many great things about this. First of all, it meant that this generation of women could take it for granted that they would be taken seriously, which is is something so profoundly wonderful that it brings tears to my eyes to think about it. They could wear flirty, feminine clothes, dress like an eight-year-old, a vamp, or a diva, and it didn't even seem to occur to them to worry that someone would ignore them or accuse them of sleeping their way to the top.
And there were lesser positives, too-- when I was in high school, having your bra strap showing was enough to send you red-faced and embarrassed to the restroom to stow it away again. By the mid 90s, camisoles were designed specifically to show your bra strap, and underwear came in vivid colors and animal prints--the whole intention was for it to be seen. And it was lot of fun to play dress-up and feel powerful doing it.
But there were also moments when I just shook my head--like one time I was wandering around the women's clothing section at REI and came across a bunch of tops intended for rock climbing that tied with a bow in back. Seriously? How can you be taken seriously as an athlete if your clothing ties in a bow? What if it came untied and presented a climbing hazard? But of course times had changed. No one thought about it like that anymore. I can already hear how a third waver would respond: Just because I climb with the guys doesn't mean I have to look like one.
Recently I've wondered if things have finally come full circle. I've been increasingly disturbed at the pictures that women post of themselves--or parts of themselves. Cleavage shots, shots of their butts, torso shots where their only coverage is an arm across their breasts. It's the same thing of course-- women feeling powerful in their bodies, and proud of how they look--and there's nothing wrong with that. I will admit to some prudish, eyebrow-raised reactions, but usually even I can tell that this isn't about prudery.
But it has struck me recently as a little odd that we've gone in the past thirty years from women being outraged that they might be judged for their tits and ass to now being insistent on being judged that way. If you use a cleavage shot as your profile picture, it almost demands that people see you as a pair of boobs.
It's not an observation that they would appreciate. They see it as a claiming of their own power to be able to revel in looking good. But as a former card-carrying member of the second wave, it just strikes me as odd.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
above us only sky
Fear is the cheapest room in the house, with the worst view.
I would like to see you living in better conditions.
--Hafiz
There is some kiss we want
with our whole lives.
The touch of Spirit on the body.
--Rumi
We've had the privilege for the past two nights now to hear a muezzin from Seattle (a muezzin is the person who sings the call to prayer in a mosque). It's really quite beautiful. He and another representative of the interfaith community in Seattle came at the invitation of our local multi-faith choir.
Last night, the call to prayer was accompanied by readings of poems by the two Muslim poets Rumi and Hafiz. The second man told a story, a Muslim folk tale, that I've been thinking about. His accent was quite heavy and the acoustics in the room were not particularly good, so I probably don't have the details right, but I think this is the gist of it.
I would like to see you living in better conditions.
--Hafiz
There is some kiss we want
with our whole lives.
The touch of Spirit on the body.
--Rumi
We've had the privilege for the past two nights now to hear a muezzin from Seattle (a muezzin is the person who sings the call to prayer in a mosque). It's really quite beautiful. He and another representative of the interfaith community in Seattle came at the invitation of our local multi-faith choir.
Last night, the call to prayer was accompanied by readings of poems by the two Muslim poets Rumi and Hafiz. The second man told a story, a Muslim folk tale, that I've been thinking about. His accent was quite heavy and the acoustics in the room were not particularly good, so I probably don't have the details right, but I think this is the gist of it.
There once was a merchant who owned a beautiful parrot. The parrot was one of his prized possessions. When he was travelling to India, he asked all of his household, including the parrot, what they would like to receive from India. The parrot asked the merchant to seek out his wild brethren and to give them his greeting. The merchant knew this meant that the parrot wished to be free, but he could not bring himself to let he parrot go.
So the merchant did as the parrot asked and greeted the wild parrots he encountered in the name of his beloved caged friend. When the wild parrots heard of their caged brother, one of them fell to the ground dead. The merchant was shocked and mystified.
When he returned home, he told his parrot of the strange happening. The parrot immediately also fell down dead. The merchant was broken-hearted. He carefully removed the parrot from the cage and placed his body on the ground. Whereupon the parrot revived and flew up to the top of the garden wall.
I immediately understood the message of my brothers, the parrot told him. If you want to soar, sometimes you must play dead for awhile.The storyteller told us that the story has been applied to various different situations for centuries, including temptation (sometimes the best way to deal with temptation is to put your obsession to death--figuratively put it to death), success (sometimes the best way to get what you want is to give it up), and compromise (sometimes the best way to make your point is to give your ideas a rest). Interesting, yes?
Monday, April 29, 2013
Riffday: Another one already?
1. Thanks for your patience with my whiney day on Friday, but I have to say there were more comments on that post than on anything in a long time, so maybe I should whine more often.
2. There was a brief discussion about migraine remedies in the comments of that post, so I will update you on what I've tried. Hmmm. that could get fairly long. what I've tried in the past week, let's put it that way. Just a couple of weeks ago I read about another blogger's near-miraculous success with peppermint oil. I've heard of lavender (which gives me a headache), but not peppermint oil. So I tried it, and I give it a guarded thumbs-up. For low-level headaches, it works as well as advil. It didn't do anything for the major one I had on Tuesday. Eva mentioned ginger, which was also new to me. I have ginger tea here at the house but I haven't used it as a headache remedy. It worked better than the peppermint oil, but still not as well as Maxalt--which is the prescription drug I've used for years now. But Maxalt is expensive and has side effects and I start running out of it when I have a long run of headaches, so overall I'm happy to know about both of these. All remedies are individual in how well they work, but these are definitely worth a try if you are also a headache sufferer.
3. We've never had a dog that likes to ride in the car before. Zeke, the border collie who was our first child, hated to ride in the car and would drool all over the place (which our vet said was a sign of carsickness). Jazz is happy to go in the car but she gets so obnoxiously excited that I can't stand to take her anywhere. She spends the whole trip with her head hanging over the seat, panting. But Sadie just wants to go. If I pick up my keys, she heads straight for the back seat, and she settles right down and goes to sleep. It's kind of nice to have company on my interminable rounds of errands. I've joined the legions of Montanans who drive around with their dog(s) in the car.
4. April Reading Report: Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen (fun book, perfect vacation read). If Chins Could Kill by Bruce Campbell (interesting insider look at the movie industry). Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (fabulous, wonderful, loved it--but it's Gaiman so no surprise there). Women Food and God by Geneen Roth (thought provoking. It seemed to me to be more about life in general and applicable to men as well, unlike the title sounds). All of them good and well worth reading, but none of them seemed worth writing out a full review. Or maybe I'm just not in the mood this month. Some thoughts inspired by the Geneen Roth book may show up later.
5. I think we should all read Great Gatsby before the movie comes out. It's not that long (less than 200 pages) and it's not a terribly difficult read. It doesn't have a happy ending, but the writing is beautiful. I might even vote for it for the Great American Novel, or at least one of them--I suppose we could create subcategories: "Greatest U.S. Novel about the Myth of the Self-Made Man."
6. Brag On My Children Time: MadMax broke the freshman record for discus throw at a meet on Saturday--for his high school and possibly for the state. And PellMel got into medical school--it happened about a month ago but I don't think I ever told you. So she will be busy for the Next Eight Years. My children totally rock.
7. I sang tenor in choir this week! There were four altos but only two tenors, so I moved up to the top row with the guys. It was fun.
2. There was a brief discussion about migraine remedies in the comments of that post, so I will update you on what I've tried. Hmmm. that could get fairly long. what I've tried in the past week, let's put it that way. Just a couple of weeks ago I read about another blogger's near-miraculous success with peppermint oil. I've heard of lavender (which gives me a headache), but not peppermint oil. So I tried it, and I give it a guarded thumbs-up. For low-level headaches, it works as well as advil. It didn't do anything for the major one I had on Tuesday. Eva mentioned ginger, which was also new to me. I have ginger tea here at the house but I haven't used it as a headache remedy. It worked better than the peppermint oil, but still not as well as Maxalt--which is the prescription drug I've used for years now. But Maxalt is expensive and has side effects and I start running out of it when I have a long run of headaches, so overall I'm happy to know about both of these. All remedies are individual in how well they work, but these are definitely worth a try if you are also a headache sufferer.
3. We've never had a dog that likes to ride in the car before. Zeke, the border collie who was our first child, hated to ride in the car and would drool all over the place (which our vet said was a sign of carsickness). Jazz is happy to go in the car but she gets so obnoxiously excited that I can't stand to take her anywhere. She spends the whole trip with her head hanging over the seat, panting. But Sadie just wants to go. If I pick up my keys, she heads straight for the back seat, and she settles right down and goes to sleep. It's kind of nice to have company on my interminable rounds of errands. I've joined the legions of Montanans who drive around with their dog(s) in the car.
4. April Reading Report: Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen (fun book, perfect vacation read). If Chins Could Kill by Bruce Campbell (interesting insider look at the movie industry). Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (fabulous, wonderful, loved it--but it's Gaiman so no surprise there). Women Food and God by Geneen Roth (thought provoking. It seemed to me to be more about life in general and applicable to men as well, unlike the title sounds). All of them good and well worth reading, but none of them seemed worth writing out a full review. Or maybe I'm just not in the mood this month. Some thoughts inspired by the Geneen Roth book may show up later.
5. I think we should all read Great Gatsby before the movie comes out. It's not that long (less than 200 pages) and it's not a terribly difficult read. It doesn't have a happy ending, but the writing is beautiful. I might even vote for it for the Great American Novel, or at least one of them--I suppose we could create subcategories: "Greatest U.S. Novel about the Myth of the Self-Made Man."
6. Brag On My Children Time: MadMax broke the freshman record for discus throw at a meet on Saturday--for his high school and possibly for the state. And PellMel got into medical school--it happened about a month ago but I don't think I ever told you. So she will be busy for the Next Eight Years. My children totally rock.
7. I sang tenor in choir this week! There were four altos but only two tenors, so I moved up to the top row with the guys. It was fun.
Friday, April 26, 2013
in which Aunt BeaN waxes neurotic
I don't know if you can tell from the few posts I've done over the past month or so, but things have been a bit rough for me lately. For one thing, I've started having headaches again. Lots of them. In the past four months, I've had almost as many days with headaches as without--sometimes just a low-level irritating ache, sometimes full-on miserable migraines. It's frustrating and irritating and makes me grumpy as hell. Just ask my family.
I want to be able to overcome them through force of will. Other people don't have chronic headaches, so it must be some flaw in me that makes this happen, right? So if I do everything right, get all my ducks in a row and avoid caffeine and sugar and make sure I get daily exercise and take my vitamins and meditate daily and and and, then they'll stop, right? I can control them. I know I can. *grits teeth and mutters must. be. in. control.*
But it never seems to work that way. Doing everything just right seems to work for some people, but for some reason it doesn't work for me. Dean is naturally one of the people who can accomplish pretty much whatever he wants through force of will. But when I try it, first of all I can never quite manage to get it 100% right-- there are always those moments of weakness where I choose the iced latté or I forget to meditate or I just freaking don't want to exercise today.
But also it turns into a kind of moral perfectionism--an insistence that if I do what I'm supposed to do, I've paid my dues and everything in my life should turn out just right, because damn it I'm doing all the things I'm supposed to do so I deserve the life I think I should have, a life that fits in with some mythical standard in my head of what it should be like.
And that never works. When I state it baldly like that, the flaws in my logic are clear-- bad things happen to people who are doing everything right. There are no guarantees. Just because you go to church and say your prayers and pay your taxes doesn't mean you get a guarantee that everything will turn out fine. And anyway, what I "should" want has absolutely no bearing on anything.
The frustration for me comes because it looks like other people can get this to work. They do what they're supposed to do, and it works--they're healthy and happy and functional. When I do all the things I believe I'm supposed to do, I am restless. (Suddenly we aren't just talking about headaches.) I want to be like everyone else. I'm willing to lop off arms and legs and ideas and dreams to fit into my idea of what my life should be like.
But then I get the headaches. And I'm not happy. No matter how badly I want to be able to be happy with the things I think I'm supposed to be happy with, I'm not. Maybe I should be grateful for the headaches, yes? And maybe I should recognize that I don't know what the hell is going on in anyone else's life. When I look enviously at someone who looks like they've got everything going the way they want it, it may be a reflection of my own insecurities I see, my need to beat myself up, not anything real.
Is this making even the slightest bit of sense? Funny, as I'm thinking back over times in my life when I've had bad bouts of headaches, every time it has served to nudge me out of a rut of determination to make myself fit into someone else's life. (or my idea of what someone else's life is like.) And no one does this to me--it's my own determination, my own self pressuring me. I'm fricking fifty-one years old and I'm still figuring this stuff out. This seems like something you should deal with when you're 25.
See? measuring myself by a mythical Someone Else's standards. There's a phrase going around on Fitocracy and Facebook these days that I should have tattooed on my wrist so I can see it all the time: Comparison is the thief of joy.
I want to be able to overcome them through force of will. Other people don't have chronic headaches, so it must be some flaw in me that makes this happen, right? So if I do everything right, get all my ducks in a row and avoid caffeine and sugar and make sure I get daily exercise and take my vitamins and meditate daily and and and, then they'll stop, right? I can control them. I know I can. *grits teeth and mutters must. be. in. control.*
But it never seems to work that way. Doing everything just right seems to work for some people, but for some reason it doesn't work for me. Dean is naturally one of the people who can accomplish pretty much whatever he wants through force of will. But when I try it, first of all I can never quite manage to get it 100% right-- there are always those moments of weakness where I choose the iced latté or I forget to meditate or I just freaking don't want to exercise today.
But also it turns into a kind of moral perfectionism--an insistence that if I do what I'm supposed to do, I've paid my dues and everything in my life should turn out just right, because damn it I'm doing all the things I'm supposed to do so I deserve the life I think I should have, a life that fits in with some mythical standard in my head of what it should be like.
And that never works. When I state it baldly like that, the flaws in my logic are clear-- bad things happen to people who are doing everything right. There are no guarantees. Just because you go to church and say your prayers and pay your taxes doesn't mean you get a guarantee that everything will turn out fine. And anyway, what I "should" want has absolutely no bearing on anything.
The frustration for me comes because it looks like other people can get this to work. They do what they're supposed to do, and it works--they're healthy and happy and functional. When I do all the things I believe I'm supposed to do, I am restless. (Suddenly we aren't just talking about headaches.) I want to be like everyone else. I'm willing to lop off arms and legs and ideas and dreams to fit into my idea of what my life should be like.
But then I get the headaches. And I'm not happy. No matter how badly I want to be able to be happy with the things I think I'm supposed to be happy with, I'm not. Maybe I should be grateful for the headaches, yes? And maybe I should recognize that I don't know what the hell is going on in anyone else's life. When I look enviously at someone who looks like they've got everything going the way they want it, it may be a reflection of my own insecurities I see, my need to beat myself up, not anything real.
Is this making even the slightest bit of sense? Funny, as I'm thinking back over times in my life when I've had bad bouts of headaches, every time it has served to nudge me out of a rut of determination to make myself fit into someone else's life. (or my idea of what someone else's life is like.) And no one does this to me--it's my own determination, my own self pressuring me. I'm fricking fifty-one years old and I'm still figuring this stuff out. This seems like something you should deal with when you're 25.
See? measuring myself by a mythical Someone Else's standards. There's a phrase going around on Fitocracy and Facebook these days that I should have tattooed on my wrist so I can see it all the time: Comparison is the thief of joy.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Riffday: too much TV
1. I stayed up until after 2 a.m. last night (Thursday night) watching the manhunt. Turns out the guy they hunted down in the wee hours last night was uninvolved. He was just an innocent bystander who was stripped and handcuffed and interrogated by the FBI up against a wall with a flashlight in his face, but he was just a normal guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. You could tell it was a major blunder because nobody talked about it this morning--he hasn't even been mentioned all day. Only those of us who were still watching in the middle of the night will remember. He has my prayers, because what an awful, awful experience. I wouldn't be able to sleep for months. In fact, I had a hard time falling asleep last night because I watched too much. The entire scenario is difficult to wrap your brain around. Even though they have the second suspect in custody now, the whole thing just leaves me feeling a little bit sick to my stomach--all of it, from the bombings on Monday to the crowds chanting "USA" on TV tonight, as if we had won a soccer game.
2. I mourned the damage to the marathon community in my last post, but on the Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert reminded me how unlikely it is that marathoners will be deterred by terrorism: "But here is what these cowards really don't get. They attacked the Boston Marathon. An event celebrating people who run 26 miles on their day off until their nipples are raw — for fun. And they have been holding it in Boston since 1897. ...And when those bombs went off, there were runners who, after finishing a marathon, kept running for another two miles to the hospital to donate blood. So here's what I know. These maniacs may have tried to make life bad for the people of Boston, but all they can ever do is show just how good those people are."
3. Moving on. We had more winter this past week than we did when it was actually winter. Enough already. Today we finally had some blue sky and it got up to 48, which is the best we've had in awhile. Every year I get tired of wearing a jacket and wool socks somewhere at the end of March, so I stop. So now I am cold all the time.
4. Sadie outgrew her puppy collar and got a real collar a couple of months ago. We underestimated how big she was going to be--she outgrew that one, too. Now she has a beautiful turquoise collar and she looks quite stylish. And big.
5. During her catbox problems, we thought Cinder, our 16-year-old cat, was at death's door. So I thought we could indulge her a bit. We have always fed our pets dry pet food since that's what every vet we've ever been to recommends. But since I thought Cinder was about to die, why not get her Trout and Cod Buffet in Gravy? or Savoy Salmon Feast? Needless to say, she was thrilled about her new diet, and because of that or some other reason, she perked right up. So now she is addicted to smelly, nasty canned cat food and I can't quite bear to stop giving it to her--partly because she is so elderly, and partly because she has a high-decibel yowl that she has no problem using when she's unhappy with us (which fortunately isn't very often). It would be about as miserable for us as it would be for her. The things we do for our pets. At least it's cheap. (she still gets her dry food, too, don't worry.)
6. Going back to this conversation: I read yet another book discussion this morning where people were equating "lack of resolution" at the end of a book with "real" life. I still just don't get this. One woman said that the book under discussion ended "messily," just like real life is a mess. And that makes some sense to me, more sense than saying "lack of resolution" is the same thing as real life. In real life, resolutions do happen--people fall in love and get married, or change jobs and find the change fulfilling and satisfying, or work very hard to achieve a goal and then reach the goal. Why is it less like real life to end a story after one of those resolutions than to end it in between resolutions? Why is it only "real" if it ends in despair, chaos, or confusion? You like unresolved endings, fine. But don't tell me it's not real unless it's unresolved and depressing. Of course I know that "real" life rarely has happily ever afters, but this adamant opinion that a "realistic" novel must be depressing and miserable seems as stubbornly unrealistic as the candy-coated opposite.
7. I have a friend I dearly love here locally who is famous for greeting her women friends with "Hey, beautiful!!" or "Hi, gorgeous!" or "Hey there, hottie!" When I first met her years ago it seemed fake, because she always said it, even when I was wearing grungy clothes and looking my worst. But after awhile, I found myself counting on it--even when I was feeling my very most ugly, if Nat was going to be there, I knew I could count on her to tell me I looked great.
We were very sad to find out a couple of months ago that she and her family are moving at the end of the school year. Earlier this week, I was commiserating with another friend about how much we will miss her. That friend said, "Who is going to tell us we're beautiful now?" We both laughed, because we're in our 50s and obviously not many people are going to tell us we're gorgeous and hot anymore. But I got to thinking about it later and realized how odd that is. We are beautiful. We're genuine and real and our lives show in our faces. I decided that I'm going to start telling more of my friends that they're beautiful. Because it's true.
2. I mourned the damage to the marathon community in my last post, but on the Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert reminded me how unlikely it is that marathoners will be deterred by terrorism: "But here is what these cowards really don't get. They attacked the Boston Marathon. An event celebrating people who run 26 miles on their day off until their nipples are raw — for fun. And they have been holding it in Boston since 1897. ...And when those bombs went off, there were runners who, after finishing a marathon, kept running for another two miles to the hospital to donate blood. So here's what I know. These maniacs may have tried to make life bad for the people of Boston, but all they can ever do is show just how good those people are."
3. Moving on. We had more winter this past week than we did when it was actually winter. Enough already. Today we finally had some blue sky and it got up to 48, which is the best we've had in awhile. Every year I get tired of wearing a jacket and wool socks somewhere at the end of March, so I stop. So now I am cold all the time.
4. Sadie outgrew her puppy collar and got a real collar a couple of months ago. We underestimated how big she was going to be--she outgrew that one, too. Now she has a beautiful turquoise collar and she looks quite stylish. And big.
5. During her catbox problems, we thought Cinder, our 16-year-old cat, was at death's door. So I thought we could indulge her a bit. We have always fed our pets dry pet food since that's what every vet we've ever been to recommends. But since I thought Cinder was about to die, why not get her Trout and Cod Buffet in Gravy? or Savoy Salmon Feast? Needless to say, she was thrilled about her new diet, and because of that or some other reason, she perked right up. So now she is addicted to smelly, nasty canned cat food and I can't quite bear to stop giving it to her--partly because she is so elderly, and partly because she has a high-decibel yowl that she has no problem using when she's unhappy with us (which fortunately isn't very often). It would be about as miserable for us as it would be for her. The things we do for our pets. At least it's cheap. (she still gets her dry food, too, don't worry.)
6. Going back to this conversation: I read yet another book discussion this morning where people were equating "lack of resolution" at the end of a book with "real" life. I still just don't get this. One woman said that the book under discussion ended "messily," just like real life is a mess. And that makes some sense to me, more sense than saying "lack of resolution" is the same thing as real life. In real life, resolutions do happen--people fall in love and get married, or change jobs and find the change fulfilling and satisfying, or work very hard to achieve a goal and then reach the goal. Why is it less like real life to end a story after one of those resolutions than to end it in between resolutions? Why is it only "real" if it ends in despair, chaos, or confusion? You like unresolved endings, fine. But don't tell me it's not real unless it's unresolved and depressing. Of course I know that "real" life rarely has happily ever afters, but this adamant opinion that a "realistic" novel must be depressing and miserable seems as stubbornly unrealistic as the candy-coated opposite.
7. I have a friend I dearly love here locally who is famous for greeting her women friends with "Hey, beautiful!!" or "Hi, gorgeous!" or "Hey there, hottie!" When I first met her years ago it seemed fake, because she always said it, even when I was wearing grungy clothes and looking my worst. But after awhile, I found myself counting on it--even when I was feeling my very most ugly, if Nat was going to be there, I knew I could count on her to tell me I looked great.
We were very sad to find out a couple of months ago that she and her family are moving at the end of the school year. Earlier this week, I was commiserating with another friend about how much we will miss her. That friend said, "Who is going to tell us we're beautiful now?" We both laughed, because we're in our 50s and obviously not many people are going to tell us we're gorgeous and hot anymore. But I got to thinking about it later and realized how odd that is. We are beautiful. We're genuine and real and our lives show in our faces. I decided that I'm going to start telling more of my friends that they're beautiful. Because it's true.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Lighting a candle for Boston
Dean has run in marathons. Five of them. It was a long time ago now, probably ten years since he ran the last one. I'm afraid I wasn't the most supportive wife. Marathon training takes hours and hours (and hours and hours), and MadMax was small and toddler-ish for the early ones. I wasn't happy that Dean was not only gone long hours at work, but then had long hours of marathon training on top of it.
But in spite of my grumpiness about his commitment to marathon training, I loved the marathon day itself. It's hard to describe if you've never been to one. The finish line is a place of joy and celebration--not so much for the elite runners who finish early (although even that is really cool, to see these amazing athletes sail across the finish line as if they'd just been for a jog around the block), but for the average people who come along an hour or two later. Average being relative of course, because they're still finishing a marathon, which is hardly average.
You see people who are weeping with relief at finishing their first one, or limping in pain but still determined to finish, or defiant and triumphant with their arms raised, or calm and composed but just slow. There are people who are running to prove that they've beaten cancer or some other disease, people who are running in honor of someone who can't run, people who are running to raise money for all kinds of good causes. For all of them, first-timers and experienced marathoners, it's an incredible achievement. The finish line is a joyous celebration. There's music and applause, fist bumps and high fives, cramps and nausea, hugs and tears. It's inspiring and amazing and so happy.
And then there are those bombs exploding in the middle of it. It just sickens me. My heart goes out to everyone involved, the families, the victims, the responders, the traumatized spectators, the runners who didn't get to finish. Every marathoner everywhere, everyone who loves a marathoner or has cheered for one or has witnessed a race, is grieving for something that will never be the same again.
Shame on you, whoever is responsible. Shame on you.
But in spite of my grumpiness about his commitment to marathon training, I loved the marathon day itself. It's hard to describe if you've never been to one. The finish line is a place of joy and celebration--not so much for the elite runners who finish early (although even that is really cool, to see these amazing athletes sail across the finish line as if they'd just been for a jog around the block), but for the average people who come along an hour or two later. Average being relative of course, because they're still finishing a marathon, which is hardly average.
You see people who are weeping with relief at finishing their first one, or limping in pain but still determined to finish, or defiant and triumphant with their arms raised, or calm and composed but just slow. There are people who are running to prove that they've beaten cancer or some other disease, people who are running in honor of someone who can't run, people who are running to raise money for all kinds of good causes. For all of them, first-timers and experienced marathoners, it's an incredible achievement. The finish line is a joyous celebration. There's music and applause, fist bumps and high fives, cramps and nausea, hugs and tears. It's inspiring and amazing and so happy.
And then there are those bombs exploding in the middle of it. It just sickens me. My heart goes out to everyone involved, the families, the victims, the responders, the traumatized spectators, the runners who didn't get to finish. Every marathoner everywhere, everyone who loves a marathoner or has cheered for one or has witnessed a race, is grieving for something that will never be the same again.
Shame on you, whoever is responsible. Shame on you.
Monday, April 15, 2013
to journal or not to journal, that is a question
I think I am going to start journaling again.
There is a history here. I started keeping a journal when I was in high school, and I was an obsessive journaler. I would start writing late at night and go on for pages and pages. I wrote about who I had a crush on and how my classes were going and God and the Bible and my parents and how much they misunderstood me.
At the time, it seemed horribly significant. I would write a paragraph that seemed particular beautiful, and I would want to share it with everyone (thank god, I never did, because I was also horribly shy about my writing). I would think, the world needs to read this.
Ah, the megalomania of youth.
Then I spent years in therapy (it was what one did back in the 80s), and like most people who go through some kind of therapy, I found it helpful. It gave me some perspective on my life, helped me grow up and be less self-obsessed.
For better or for worse, the new, more mature me equated journaling with all that self-obsession. All the endless ruminating on what I was thinking and feeling, the belief that it was so important that it needed to be written down. Even though I never showed it to anyone, I believed in some tiny corner of my mind that someday someone would find it and read it, because it was important.
So I stopped. I haven't kept a journal in more than fifteen years. Eventually I started this blog, and then I had a place to write when I was trying to work something out in my head that didn't feel so self-absorbed, because you guys read it and you give me feedback and I can tell which posts are interesting and which ones are just meandering bits of fluff. It doesn't feel so enclosed.
But I've got lots going on in my head these days, and I don't usually post private stuff. Occasionally I publish posts here that are so personal that I am later embarrassed (I would link to an example or two, but that would just call attention to posts that I really am not sure I want anyone to read). But usually I write about what I'm reading, or what I was learning in school, or some issue that is interesting to me and that I think will be interesting to you.
For the last several weeks, everything I can think of to write about feels too private (and maybe more importantly, too boring) to post here. The thought of journaling still bugs me, though. It's strongly associated in my mind with a particular period in my history that I don't want to revisit. But there's stuff in my head that I need to get out.
I know some of you keep journals, do you have any advice? I decided to try it this morning. I sat down this morning and stared at the blank screen for awhile and couldn't get up any enthusiasm to write about anything. So I fell back on an old standby from when I used to go to those spirituality workshops which seemed to always promote journaling-- write a list. Start with "I am" statements (I am a mother, I am a student, I am hungry, I am lonely, I am not sure I want to do this, etc), and then let yourself branch out, but keep to a list format. I made it to 30 statements in about eight minutes, so I guess that is pretty good. Huh. I just found myself thinking, "But I still would rather write something that feels important enough to post here." Interesting.
There is a history here. I started keeping a journal when I was in high school, and I was an obsessive journaler. I would start writing late at night and go on for pages and pages. I wrote about who I had a crush on and how my classes were going and God and the Bible and my parents and how much they misunderstood me.
At the time, it seemed horribly significant. I would write a paragraph that seemed particular beautiful, and I would want to share it with everyone (thank god, I never did, because I was also horribly shy about my writing). I would think, the world needs to read this.
Ah, the megalomania of youth.
Then I spent years in therapy (it was what one did back in the 80s), and like most people who go through some kind of therapy, I found it helpful. It gave me some perspective on my life, helped me grow up and be less self-obsessed.
For better or for worse, the new, more mature me equated journaling with all that self-obsession. All the endless ruminating on what I was thinking and feeling, the belief that it was so important that it needed to be written down. Even though I never showed it to anyone, I believed in some tiny corner of my mind that someday someone would find it and read it, because it was important.
So I stopped. I haven't kept a journal in more than fifteen years. Eventually I started this blog, and then I had a place to write when I was trying to work something out in my head that didn't feel so self-absorbed, because you guys read it and you give me feedback and I can tell which posts are interesting and which ones are just meandering bits of fluff. It doesn't feel so enclosed.
But I've got lots going on in my head these days, and I don't usually post private stuff. Occasionally I publish posts here that are so personal that I am later embarrassed (I would link to an example or two, but that would just call attention to posts that I really am not sure I want anyone to read). But usually I write about what I'm reading, or what I was learning in school, or some issue that is interesting to me and that I think will be interesting to you.
For the last several weeks, everything I can think of to write about feels too private (and maybe more importantly, too boring) to post here. The thought of journaling still bugs me, though. It's strongly associated in my mind with a particular period in my history that I don't want to revisit. But there's stuff in my head that I need to get out.
I know some of you keep journals, do you have any advice? I decided to try it this morning. I sat down this morning and stared at the blank screen for awhile and couldn't get up any enthusiasm to write about anything. So I fell back on an old standby from when I used to go to those spirituality workshops which seemed to always promote journaling-- write a list. Start with "I am" statements (I am a mother, I am a student, I am hungry, I am lonely, I am not sure I want to do this, etc), and then let yourself branch out, but keep to a list format. I made it to 30 statements in about eight minutes, so I guess that is pretty good. Huh. I just found myself thinking, "But I still would rather write something that feels important enough to post here." Interesting.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
blessed are the peacemakers, except when they take themselves too seriously
I've never really studied birth order theories very much (although I did just read the Wikipedia article), but I've heard that middle children are usually peacemakers. Whether I got that way because of being the middle of three daughters, or whether I would have ended up that way anyway, I seem to be cursed with the compulsion to mend fences. Or at least, to try and help people see their opponents' point of view.
It's a tough time to be a peacemaker, because other than the six or seven of us who have the urge, nobody else seems to want peace--or at least, they don't want it unless it comes in the form that supports their agenda. Finding common ground, resolving polarites--it all involves compromise, and that is not the spirit of our times. This is a time of knowing what you believe, knowing that your opponents are wrong, digging in your heels, and refusing to give in. It's admirable in many ways. In a less divided time, we admire people who have strong beliefs and refuse to compromise.
But if you've got that peacemaker urge, it's like being stretched on a rack all the time these days.
Oh, good lord.
Do NOT google "stretched on rack torture" and then click on "images." What was I thinking? I thought I'd find an illustration--maybe a funny cartoon-- for how this feels, but trust me, it doesn't feel as bad as those pictures. Blecch. I could have lived a long time without having those pictures in my head.
Well, it worked to get my head cleared. I was feeling all angst-y about my urge to be a peacemaker, to build bridges in an age when nobody wants to see things from their opponents' point of view, but that was a good slap up side the head to remind me that my life is just not that fricking hard. Get over yourself, Aunt BeaN. and for the record can I just say how happy I am I was not born in the Middle Ages.
Moving on. Seems like when I sat down that was going somewhere, but now I can't remember where, and I need to keep typing until I get that crap out of my head, so let's see... what else could I tell you. It snowed twice today, which was unwelcome (it's MID-APRIL) but not all that unexpected around here. But even if we get enough to stick overnight, it won't last long.
Have I told you about singing in choir? I spent quite a bit of time singing in various choirs when I was a kid--in elementary school I was in a group that sang at various community events, in high school I was in our youth choir at church (which involved trips and contests--called "festivals" in Southern Baptist-land because it wasn't supposed to be about competition but you better believe we knew exactly how well we did), in college I joined the choir at a local church for a couple of semesters, and for a few years after college I sang in my church choir and also in a women's ensemble.
Then we joined a church with a really good choir--the kind where you had to audition, and people with average voices need not apply--and then we moved here and somehow I just never joined the choir. But for various reasons there have been a number of defections from the alto section recently, so egged on by a friend, I joined the choir. It's been fun, and also it has increased my church attendance from about once a month to 3-4 times a month. That has to be good, right?
And that's enough for tonight.
It's a tough time to be a peacemaker, because other than the six or seven of us who have the urge, nobody else seems to want peace--or at least, they don't want it unless it comes in the form that supports their agenda. Finding common ground, resolving polarites--it all involves compromise, and that is not the spirit of our times. This is a time of knowing what you believe, knowing that your opponents are wrong, digging in your heels, and refusing to give in. It's admirable in many ways. In a less divided time, we admire people who have strong beliefs and refuse to compromise.
But if you've got that peacemaker urge, it's like being stretched on a rack all the time these days.
Oh, good lord.
Do NOT google "stretched on rack torture" and then click on "images." What was I thinking? I thought I'd find an illustration--maybe a funny cartoon-- for how this feels, but trust me, it doesn't feel as bad as those pictures. Blecch. I could have lived a long time without having those pictures in my head.
Well, it worked to get my head cleared. I was feeling all angst-y about my urge to be a peacemaker, to build bridges in an age when nobody wants to see things from their opponents' point of view, but that was a good slap up side the head to remind me that my life is just not that fricking hard. Get over yourself, Aunt BeaN. and for the record can I just say how happy I am I was not born in the Middle Ages.
Moving on. Seems like when I sat down that was going somewhere, but now I can't remember where, and I need to keep typing until I get that crap out of my head, so let's see... what else could I tell you. It snowed twice today, which was unwelcome (it's MID-APRIL) but not all that unexpected around here. But even if we get enough to stick overnight, it won't last long.
Have I told you about singing in choir? I spent quite a bit of time singing in various choirs when I was a kid--in elementary school I was in a group that sang at various community events, in high school I was in our youth choir at church (which involved trips and contests--called "festivals" in Southern Baptist-land because it wasn't supposed to be about competition but you better believe we knew exactly how well we did), in college I joined the choir at a local church for a couple of semesters, and for a few years after college I sang in my church choir and also in a women's ensemble.
Then we joined a church with a really good choir--the kind where you had to audition, and people with average voices need not apply--and then we moved here and somehow I just never joined the choir. But for various reasons there have been a number of defections from the alto section recently, so egged on by a friend, I joined the choir. It's been fun, and also it has increased my church attendance from about once a month to 3-4 times a month. That has to be good, right?
And that's enough for tonight.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
advice needed
I'm going to apply this week to teach non-credit classes at our community college. Our CC is terrific-- very involved in the community and committed to providing the kinds of education/training that local employers want, as well as the usual--providing the first two years of college for students who want to go on to a four-year school. But another wonderful thing they do is provide a forum for continuing education--non-credit classes that anyone can take about any topic that interests them. Now that I've finished school, I can present a proposal to teach a non-credit class (or as many as I want).
First of all, this is scary to me. Funny--when I was younger but didn't have the credentials, I would have confidently stepped up to the plate, sure that I could teach people just about anything I know, and probably wing it to teach some things that I don't know all that well. Now I am older and have the credentials, but I can't imagine that I have anything useful to teach anybody. Oh, to be young and cocky again.
So here are my ideas, tell me which ones you think might work. And also let me know what else you'd find interesting.
Ulysses-- James Joyce's 1921 masterpiece is often referred to as the greatest novel of the twentieth century, but few people have read it. Ulysses is the story of a single day--June 16, 1904-- in Dublin, following Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom as they make their way around the city, and ending with a chapter from Molly Bloom, Leopold's wife. The eighteen episodes present a variety of narrative strategies employed by Joyce to represent the complexity of conveying human experience. This eight week course will be a guided tour of the novel, providing the background and context you need to take on this challenging work.
NaNoWriMo-- Did you know that November is National Novel Writing Month? Every year in November, thousands of writers use the motivation of NaNoWriMo to finish a 50,000 word first draft in 30 days. This class will meet for two weeks in October to plan our novels, plus weekly meetings and online support during the month of November to write a first draft. It's crazy, fun, and addictive! (Note: you don't need to take this class to participate in NaNoWriMo, which is free and open to everyone at the NaNoWriMo website.)
What's Happening in Young Adult (YA) Literature-- This four-week course is designed to serve as both a survey of contemporary YA literature and a forum for generating ideas for encouraging teenagers to read. We will read a novel each week, with suggested options for reading many more. Course topics will include: Get Your YA Out: Defining YA Literature, Current Trends, Beyond the Bestseller Lists, and Encouraging Reluctant Readers: Non-Fiction, Humor, Adventure, and Illustrated Novels. The course is open to teens and adults who are interested in YA literature.
History of the Romance Novel--Romance novels generate over a billion dollars a year in sales, yet many readers hold them in contempt. What's going on? This six week course will start with a discussion of "women's fiction": what is meant by the term? why is its use often an implicit criticism? are women such indiscriminate readers that they are incapable of determining what is "good" literature? is there a place for stories about heterosexual love in the midst of changing ideas about gender and orientation? We will read a novel each week, starting with Jane Austen and moving forward to contemporary novels, along the way covering topics such as the evolution of the heroine, romance as a vehicle for exploring sexual politics, and subgenres such as mystery, suspense and paranormal.
First of all, this is scary to me. Funny--when I was younger but didn't have the credentials, I would have confidently stepped up to the plate, sure that I could teach people just about anything I know, and probably wing it to teach some things that I don't know all that well. Now I am older and have the credentials, but I can't imagine that I have anything useful to teach anybody. Oh, to be young and cocky again.
So here are my ideas, tell me which ones you think might work. And also let me know what else you'd find interesting.
Ulysses-- James Joyce's 1921 masterpiece is often referred to as the greatest novel of the twentieth century, but few people have read it. Ulysses is the story of a single day--June 16, 1904-- in Dublin, following Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom as they make their way around the city, and ending with a chapter from Molly Bloom, Leopold's wife. The eighteen episodes present a variety of narrative strategies employed by Joyce to represent the complexity of conveying human experience. This eight week course will be a guided tour of the novel, providing the background and context you need to take on this challenging work.
NaNoWriMo-- Did you know that November is National Novel Writing Month? Every year in November, thousands of writers use the motivation of NaNoWriMo to finish a 50,000 word first draft in 30 days. This class will meet for two weeks in October to plan our novels, plus weekly meetings and online support during the month of November to write a first draft. It's crazy, fun, and addictive! (Note: you don't need to take this class to participate in NaNoWriMo, which is free and open to everyone at the NaNoWriMo website.)
What's Happening in Young Adult (YA) Literature-- This four-week course is designed to serve as both a survey of contemporary YA literature and a forum for generating ideas for encouraging teenagers to read. We will read a novel each week, with suggested options for reading many more. Course topics will include: Get Your YA Out: Defining YA Literature, Current Trends, Beyond the Bestseller Lists, and Encouraging Reluctant Readers: Non-Fiction, Humor, Adventure, and Illustrated Novels. The course is open to teens and adults who are interested in YA literature.
History of the Romance Novel--Romance novels generate over a billion dollars a year in sales, yet many readers hold them in contempt. What's going on? This six week course will start with a discussion of "women's fiction": what is meant by the term? why is its use often an implicit criticism? are women such indiscriminate readers that they are incapable of determining what is "good" literature? is there a place for stories about heterosexual love in the midst of changing ideas about gender and orientation? We will read a novel each week, starting with Jane Austen and moving forward to contemporary novels, along the way covering topics such as the evolution of the heroine, romance as a vehicle for exploring sexual politics, and subgenres such as mystery, suspense and paranormal.
Tuesday, April 09, 2013
point and counter-point
As you know, we live in an out-of-the-way corner of an underpopulated state. When we moved here, there were three small bookstores, and I visited them often, but they were small. So when Amazon started (I just googled, it was 1994), I was in heaven. I could browse to my heart's content at any hour of the day or night, and they had every obscure book that I could dream of. I adored Amazon. I've subsequently learned a few things about their business practices that disturb me, but there will always be a little corner of my book-loving heart that belongs to Amazon.
A big part of the appeal for me was the customer reviews. In 2013, you never know if it's a "real" review or one that someone has been paid to write, but for a long time after Amazon started, there was a real community of opinionated booklovers who passed reviews and recommendations back and forth at a furious rate.
And surprisingly, Amazon allowed negative reviews. I'm pretty sure they were the first major retailer to do that--now it's common enough, but back in the day, it was a courageous statement of commitment to their customers' experience. Here they are trying to sell stuff, and yet they let users write terrible reviews of their products and they leave them up where anyone can read them. I loved it.
I wrote quite a few reviews early on, but once I started a blog I stopped-- now I post my reviews here. I've deleted most of the ones I had on Amazon. But occasionally, when I feel that I have something to add that I wish someone had told me before I bought a book, I'll still post something.
About a year and a half ago, I posted a review of a cookbook called The Breakfast Book. It had nearly all glowing five-star reviews. But I thought it was about the most boring cookbook I'd ever seen--it had recipes for biscuits from scratch and scones from scratch and several different ways to cook eggs, but it was all basic stuff that I already had in my big fat Fannie Farmer cookbook. What I wanted was inspiration, some new ideas for things we could eat for breakfast on a typical chaotic day; what this cookbook gave me was just a bunch of basic recipes that would only have worked for us on a leisurely Saturday morning (if we ever had a leisurely Saturday morning), not a busy weekday.
So I posted a review to prevent another cook like me from making the same $16 mistake, giving it three stars out of five (you can skip down to the next paragraph if you're pressed for time, this is just here for the sake of completeness):
So I replied and told her that. But I'm still a bit offended and a lot amused at her strident tone.
So, that's all. I just thought you might be interested in the exciting life I lead.
A big part of the appeal for me was the customer reviews. In 2013, you never know if it's a "real" review or one that someone has been paid to write, but for a long time after Amazon started, there was a real community of opinionated booklovers who passed reviews and recommendations back and forth at a furious rate.
And surprisingly, Amazon allowed negative reviews. I'm pretty sure they were the first major retailer to do that--now it's common enough, but back in the day, it was a courageous statement of commitment to their customers' experience. Here they are trying to sell stuff, and yet they let users write terrible reviews of their products and they leave them up where anyone can read them. I loved it.
I wrote quite a few reviews early on, but once I started a blog I stopped-- now I post my reviews here. I've deleted most of the ones I had on Amazon. But occasionally, when I feel that I have something to add that I wish someone had told me before I bought a book, I'll still post something.
About a year and a half ago, I posted a review of a cookbook called The Breakfast Book. It had nearly all glowing five-star reviews. But I thought it was about the most boring cookbook I'd ever seen--it had recipes for biscuits from scratch and scones from scratch and several different ways to cook eggs, but it was all basic stuff that I already had in my big fat Fannie Farmer cookbook. What I wanted was inspiration, some new ideas for things we could eat for breakfast on a typical chaotic day; what this cookbook gave me was just a bunch of basic recipes that would only have worked for us on a leisurely Saturday morning (if we ever had a leisurely Saturday morning), not a busy weekday.
So I posted a review to prevent another cook like me from making the same $16 mistake, giving it three stars out of five (you can skip down to the next paragraph if you're pressed for time, this is just here for the sake of completeness):
I ordered this purely based on the glowing reviews it receives here. Once I received it, it took me awhile to figure out why everyone loves it so much, because it didn't seem that great to me. I think to appreciate this cookbook, you have to love to cook. I don't hate cooking, but I don't love it the way some do-- I would never, for example, choose to make my own cheese when you can get perfectly good cheese at the grocery and even better at the gourmet foods store. But [the author] provides a recipe for cheese, because "this is exactly the cheese I've always wanted to make at home." If you read that and think, "Great! I've always wanted to try making cheese!" then this is the cookbook for you-- there are some great recipes here (and not just for cheese, of course, there are all kinds of buns and muffins and egg dishes, etc.). But if you're like me and see that recipe and think, "Why the heck would anyone want to bother making their own cheese?" then you probably want to look for another cookbook. I just wanted more ideas for quick breakfasts for my morning-challenged family, and although there are a few of those here, not enough to make it worth the purchase price.I hadn't thought about that review in months, but a couple of days ago I got an e-mail that another user had left a comment on it. I didn't ask her for permission to post the comment here, but it would be really complicated to tell you how to get to it at Amazon, and she did post it in a very public place, so I'm reproducing it here anyway:
That's the problem with people today, most people just want to go to the grocery store and buy things that they need as opposed to spending some time learning how to make healthy foods. Of course you can simply go to the grocery store and buy some random pack of cheese, but do you have any idea of what you're actually paying for? I am one of those people who have read labels, done research, and have learned what is really in store-bought foods and I love the idea of making my own foods at home. Homemade trumps store-bought any day and I don't understand why you would write such a negative review about the recipe for homemade cheese. Our society is full of lazy people who would rather make a food company rich as opposed to learning new skills regarding making homemade food.Whoa!! Really? I don't think I've ever been grouped in with the people who are "the problem today." The more I thought about this, the more dumbfounded I was. The number of conclusions she jumped to just because I don't want to make all of my own food from scratch astounded me. I'm lazy because I don't love to cook! (what if I just have other things I'd rather do?) Since I'm willing to buy cheese at the grocery store, I never read labels and have no idea what's in the foods I buy! (I'm actually a pretty dedicated reader of labels, and I do my best to buy food with a minimum of additives.) Any food made at home is better than any food that you can buy! (seriously? anything a mediocre cook (me) makes at home is necessarily going to be better than a food made by someone who knows what they're doing?) (not all foods that you buy at a store are made by huge corporations, by the way.)
So I replied and told her that. But I'm still a bit offended and a lot amused at her strident tone.
So, that's all. I just thought you might be interested in the exciting life I lead.
Sunday, April 07, 2013
spring break in pictures
We are all feeling a little dreary tonight because it is about 48 degrees and raining back here at home and spring break is over tomorrow. But climbing around the rocks was fun. I even tried mountain biking one day. Verdict: fun, and beautiful scenery, but I prefer to be on pavement when on a bike, thank you very much. Probably won't do that again. But the hikes were great and here is some high desert scenery for you:
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| (The tiny people standing in the arch are Dean and PellMel) |
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| MadMax, absolutely no respect for his poor mother's acrophobia |
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| All three of them, I could barely look |
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| Canyonlands NP |
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| Mesa Arch |
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| More Canyonlands |
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