I realized the day after I posted that last one that I left out the most important update of all: I waterskied. Uh-huh. I bet you think I'm making that up, but I have witnesses. It took me four tries to get up (I'm blaming that on the skis which were several sizes too big), and then I made a wide loop all the way around our part of the lake and skied smoothly to a stop about ten yards from the dock (thirty years ago I could have skied right up to it, but apparently I've lost the art of calculating distances on skis)(or maybe it has something to do with the fact that I weigh about 40 lbs more than I did back then). First time I've been up on waterskis since about eighteen years ago, when I only lasted about 30 seconds because I just didn't have the upper body strength to hang on. This time, I was sitting there watching the kids ski and thinking: hmmmmm, all this strength training I've been doing has to be good for something! I should try this!
So, there. I did it. Go, me. I was sore the next day, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.
I realize I haven't posted much this summer and there are several reasons for that. (#1: It was summer.) I was actually surprised just now when I looked back to see how often I did post, because it feels like I haven't written anything at all. So I have a couple of ones that I'm feeling pretty ambivalent about that I'm going to back-post over the next few days, and then I'm going to sign off for six weeks or so. At least that way I won't feel guilty about not posting because I said I wasn't going to, right??
Unless I think of something brilliant to say, of course.
Hugs and kisses to all my gentle readers.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Thursday, September 05, 2013
what's your account number? uh, seven.
1. Here is a fun thing: get a bunch of adults in their mid-twenties together. Watch from a distance as they intensely discuss something, raised voices, arguing, talking over each other, laughing, waving their arms. You assume the topic is politics or art or the meaning of the universe, but you walk up and realize they're discussing Harry Potter. Except the time when it was Little Rascals.
2. I hate when you click on a news headline and it turns out to be a video. what a waste of time. I immediately click away. You have to sit and wait through an ad, and then you have to watch a 4-minute video, when it would have taken about 20 seconds to scan through a text-based article that contained the same material. Since said videos are everywhere, I assumed I must be the only one who felt that way. But when someone posted that exact opinion on Facebook yesterday, within a few hours she had nearly a hundred likes and more than 30 commenters chiming in to say they felt the same. So why are there so many stupid videos?
3. Except I am a complete and utter sucker for military-coming-home videos. I start crying before the ads are even finished. So you can legitimately ask why the hell I watch them, and I don't very often. But I just saw another one. *sob*
4. We had our first chicken fatality yesterday. Since we've had so little trouble with them, we've become very lax about closing them in at night--over a year later, we still have six chickens. Or at least, we did have six chickens. Something (dog, fox?) got in the coop last night. Now we have five. (which may be why I let myself get sucked into the coming-home video).
5. It is cooler. Thank the good Lord above. And we've also had a bit of rain, which we needed. The only problem is that means major thunder-and-lightning storms, which I like but the dogs hate. This morning I was woken up out of a sound sleep by a ginormous deafening crack of thunder, which sounded like it hit in the backyard. Sadie practically crawled in bed with me, and I found Jazz cowering in the bathroom a few minutes later. Poor babies.
6. Winnie-the-Pooh lived up to the hype. I'm about two-thirds of the way through the original volume and it still makes me laugh. I'm usually up for an hour or two after Dean goes to bed, so I'm often reading while he's sound asleep. I woke him up giggling over Piglet and Eeyore the other night. Highly recommended.
7. My first class starts a week from Monday. I'm starting to panic. With an unusual amount of foresight, I scheduled the one I'm most comfortable with first, so at least there's that. I'll let you know how it goes.
2. I hate when you click on a news headline and it turns out to be a video. what a waste of time. I immediately click away. You have to sit and wait through an ad, and then you have to watch a 4-minute video, when it would have taken about 20 seconds to scan through a text-based article that contained the same material. Since said videos are everywhere, I assumed I must be the only one who felt that way. But when someone posted that exact opinion on Facebook yesterday, within a few hours she had nearly a hundred likes and more than 30 commenters chiming in to say they felt the same. So why are there so many stupid videos?
3. Except I am a complete and utter sucker for military-coming-home videos. I start crying before the ads are even finished. So you can legitimately ask why the hell I watch them, and I don't very often. But I just saw another one. *sob*
4. We had our first chicken fatality yesterday. Since we've had so little trouble with them, we've become very lax about closing them in at night--over a year later, we still have six chickens. Or at least, we did have six chickens. Something (dog, fox?) got in the coop last night. Now we have five. (which may be why I let myself get sucked into the coming-home video).
5. It is cooler. Thank the good Lord above. And we've also had a bit of rain, which we needed. The only problem is that means major thunder-and-lightning storms, which I like but the dogs hate. This morning I was woken up out of a sound sleep by a ginormous deafening crack of thunder, which sounded like it hit in the backyard. Sadie practically crawled in bed with me, and I found Jazz cowering in the bathroom a few minutes later. Poor babies.
6. Winnie-the-Pooh lived up to the hype. I'm about two-thirds of the way through the original volume and it still makes me laugh. I'm usually up for an hour or two after Dean goes to bed, so I'm often reading while he's sound asleep. I woke him up giggling over Piglet and Eeyore the other night. Highly recommended.
7. My first class starts a week from Monday. I'm starting to panic. With an unusual amount of foresight, I scheduled the one I'm most comfortable with first, so at least there's that. I'll let you know how it goes.
Friday, August 23, 2013
Oh, bother.
Every summer I get to the point where I am tired of being hot, tired of the lack of schedule, tired of myself. In a word, as Owl would say, bored. Which is odd, because there is still plenty to do, and my to-do list for this weekend is two pages, most of which are things that I was looking forward to a few days ago. But at the moment, nothing sounds good, so here I am to inflict my grumpiness on my poor unsuspecting readers. Well, maybe not so unsuspecting since I just warned you.
We had a summer like this about ten or twelve years ago, with a month's worth of days where the temps exceed 85. That sounds pleasantly balmy to my Texas family, but believe me, when your house is un-air conditioned and many local restaurants and offices are similarly lacking, it is too hot. We had just moved into our last house when the last one of these too-hot summers happened, and I whined and cajoled until Dean agreed to get air conditioning. Then we didn't need it again for another three or four years.
So this time, I'm hanging tough. We can wait at least another summer or two to see whether or not this is a permanent trend (thank you very much, global warming), or just another freakishly hot couple of months. We have an abundance of fans collected over the years, and most years, they work just fine. Just this year, they haven't been quite enough.
Actually, in spite of the heat (which is mixed with smoke from wildfires today, making it extra-specially oppressive), I am cheering up. I googled Pooh quotes to go with the Owl reference above, and have these gems to share:
“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.”
It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?”
“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what's the first thing you say to yourself?”
“What's for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?”
“I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting to-day?” said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It's the same thing,” he said.
Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh?" he whispered.
"Yes, Piglet?"
"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand. "I just wanted to be sure of you.”
“If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.”
And this, which is exactly my experience of keeping a blog:
“When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”
So there you go. This was going to be something else when I sat down, but the wisdom of Pooh seems good enough for now. Maybe I will re-read Milne this weekend. Have a good one.
We had a summer like this about ten or twelve years ago, with a month's worth of days where the temps exceed 85. That sounds pleasantly balmy to my Texas family, but believe me, when your house is un-air conditioned and many local restaurants and offices are similarly lacking, it is too hot. We had just moved into our last house when the last one of these too-hot summers happened, and I whined and cajoled until Dean agreed to get air conditioning. Then we didn't need it again for another three or four years.
So this time, I'm hanging tough. We can wait at least another summer or two to see whether or not this is a permanent trend (thank you very much, global warming), or just another freakishly hot couple of months. We have an abundance of fans collected over the years, and most years, they work just fine. Just this year, they haven't been quite enough.
Actually, in spite of the heat (which is mixed with smoke from wildfires today, making it extra-specially oppressive), I am cheering up. I googled Pooh quotes to go with the Owl reference above, and have these gems to share:
“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.”
It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?”
“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what's the first thing you say to yourself?”
“What's for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?”
“I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting to-day?” said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It's the same thing,” he said.
Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh?" he whispered.
"Yes, Piglet?"
"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand. "I just wanted to be sure of you.”
“If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.”
And this, which is exactly my experience of keeping a blog:
“When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”
So there you go. This was going to be something else when I sat down, but the wisdom of Pooh seems good enough for now. Maybe I will re-read Milne this weekend. Have a good one.
Friday, August 16, 2013
like seven inches from the midday sun
I got nothin. It's too damn hot. We're off to meet up with Dean's family (or parts of it, anyway) this weekend and next week it's supposed to be a little cooler. Maybe I will have something to say by then. Right now I'm too grumpy.
In the meantime, here are a couple of pictures to prove I went to Mt. Brown Lookout. I am still recovering.
In the meantime, here are a couple of pictures to prove I went to Mt. Brown Lookout. I am still recovering.
Friday, August 09, 2013
Piqued by their teasing, she peeked up at the peak
I hesitate to post on the topic of frequently misused words, because lord knows I'm not perfect on this one. When I'm typing fast, I'm just as likely as the next person to type "their" when I mean "they're," or "lose" when I mean "loose." I know the difference, I'm just typing fast and not really paying attention and things slip by me.
But I've read so many typos/errors/misused words recently that I'm practically in rant mode. I read a book by a New York Times best-selling author from a major publishing house where twice in one book a character left a room in high dungeon. The first time it made me laugh, because it's obviously a mistake and it's kind of cute (how can you leave a room in a dungeon?). But the second time you have to at least consider the possibility that maybe they really didn't know that if you are bummed about something, you leave the room in high dudgeon. *shakes head* *thinks gloomily about the future of western civilization*
And then there's peak, peek, and pique (spelled differently but all pronounced the same). I've seen all three of them misused in the past couple of weeks, but at least it has mainly been in blog posts and self-pubs. So just for the record:
peak is the apex, summit, or highest point of something. You climb a mountain to its peak (and if you live in an outdoors area, you hear people say they are going to bag a peak). Or: Gas prices peaked at over $4 a gallon. Or: Whitney Houston was at her peak in the 80s.
peek is to look at something briefly, or through a small opening. You can peek in the oven to see if your muffins are done. Or a child can peek out from underneath the covers. (which will inevitably lead to playing peek-a-boo).
pique is to enhance or stimulate--The lecture about spelunking piqued my interest in caves. Or: their constant chatter about the movie star piqued my curiosity about her movies. Or pique can be used to describe being irritated or angry. She was piqued by the ceaseless rain. After the insult, he stormed out in a fit of pique.
Then there's "feeling peaky" which means feeling slightly out of sorts, but not really sick. And there's "feeling peckish," which is another thing entirely and means "hungry."
Are we clear? Although I have to confess, I thought there were "peek-toe shoes" because your toes peek out, right? But they're not peek-toe, they're peep-toe. According to freedictionary.com, "peep" can mean the same thing as "peek" sometimes (other times it means to utter a soft, high-pitched sound like a baby bird).
Oh, and PRIMROSE when used as a color is a shade of YELLOW. Seriously, people. It sounds like it should be pink because it has "rose" in it, but it's yellow. Look it up if you don't believe me. In Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus's treacherous friend Buck Mulligan is often associated with the color yellow, and he wears a primrose waistcoat.
This may turn into a series, but that's all for now. What is the mis-used word that irritates you the most? Ha--that piques you the most?
I sound disturbingly like an English teacher.
But I've read so many typos/errors/misused words recently that I'm practically in rant mode. I read a book by a New York Times best-selling author from a major publishing house where twice in one book a character left a room in high dungeon. The first time it made me laugh, because it's obviously a mistake and it's kind of cute (how can you leave a room in a dungeon?). But the second time you have to at least consider the possibility that maybe they really didn't know that if you are bummed about something, you leave the room in high dudgeon. *shakes head* *thinks gloomily about the future of western civilization*
And then there's peak, peek, and pique (spelled differently but all pronounced the same). I've seen all three of them misused in the past couple of weeks, but at least it has mainly been in blog posts and self-pubs. So just for the record:
peak is the apex, summit, or highest point of something. You climb a mountain to its peak (and if you live in an outdoors area, you hear people say they are going to bag a peak). Or: Gas prices peaked at over $4 a gallon. Or: Whitney Houston was at her peak in the 80s.
peek is to look at something briefly, or through a small opening. You can peek in the oven to see if your muffins are done. Or a child can peek out from underneath the covers. (which will inevitably lead to playing peek-a-boo).
pique is to enhance or stimulate--The lecture about spelunking piqued my interest in caves. Or: their constant chatter about the movie star piqued my curiosity about her movies. Or pique can be used to describe being irritated or angry. She was piqued by the ceaseless rain. After the insult, he stormed out in a fit of pique.
Then there's "feeling peaky" which means feeling slightly out of sorts, but not really sick. And there's "feeling peckish," which is another thing entirely and means "hungry."
Are we clear? Although I have to confess, I thought there were "peek-toe shoes" because your toes peek out, right? But they're not peek-toe, they're peep-toe. According to freedictionary.com, "peep" can mean the same thing as "peek" sometimes (other times it means to utter a soft, high-pitched sound like a baby bird).
Oh, and PRIMROSE when used as a color is a shade of YELLOW. Seriously, people. It sounds like it should be pink because it has "rose" in it, but it's yellow. Look it up if you don't believe me. In Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus's treacherous friend Buck Mulligan is often associated with the color yellow, and he wears a primrose waistcoat.
This may turn into a series, but that's all for now. What is the mis-used word that irritates you the most? Ha--that piques you the most?
I sound disturbingly like an English teacher.
Thursday, August 08, 2013
Good-bye, Grad School
I've been putting off writing this post for weeks now. Okay, months. The header to this blog still says it's a blog "about going back to school," which has been untrue for more than six months now since I finished my degree in January. Reminds me of that old Saturday Night Live skit about the Reagans not wanting to move out of the White House when his term was up. Grad school has been my life for the past three years. Now what? At a minimum, I have to figure out what the hell else this blog going to be about.
(If you've been around awhile, the rest of this is old news, so you can skip down to the end now.) It's no secret to anyone that knows me that I've had a hard time finding something to do since we moved to Montana, twenty-one years ago now. I worked as a database programmer/analyst before we moved, and at the time when we arrived, there just weren't any businesses here doing that kind of thing. I've held a variety of part-time jobs in the intervening years, and had a great time raising our kids here and exploring the area, but I've never really found something to do, and I've never been one to find fulfillment in homemaking (although I admire people who do).
Going back to school was really the result of a dare. It wasn't exactly worded that way, but Dean threw down the gauntlet one time (I'm not sure he really even meant to) when I was complaining about how much I missed having intellectual challenges and stimulation, so I took my courage in both hands and tottered off to the community college to see what I could find. Since I already had a four-year degree and two years of grad school under my belt, you would think I would see junior college as a piece of cake, but I was terrified. I'd been out of school so long, and I was so much older than everyone else.
That first semester I signed up for Chinese and Java programming. Chinese, just because it was brand new at our school and it sounded fun and exotic, and programming because even though I'd done all sorts of different application-level programming, I'd never actually taken a class that was strictly about writing code.
Both of the classes were great, but it quickly became apparent that neither was going to yield a long-term path to a job. The Chinese professor was just here visiting for one year, and the programming professor gently told me one day after class that even though I was making an A in the class, there was almost no chance I'd get hired for a programming job when there are plenty of 25-year-old unmarried childless computer whizzes in our area competing for the same jobs. They're willing to stay up all night to meet a deadline, amped up on Red Bull and M&Ms, but I'm not. I've always been grateful for his honesty, even though it was discouraging to hear.
So it occurred to me that I could finally finish the master's in English literature that I'd abandoned 20 years before. I spent several weeks investigating the possibilities of working online with a professor from the school I originally attended, or doing it completely online at a different school, or commuting down to our state university. I finally decided on commuting to UTown, even though it meant I would have to start over, because neither of the other two options provided one of the main things I needed--to get out of the house.
Then it took a semester of prep work to get through the prerequisites for even turning in an application, and a semester to wait and see if I got in, and then I finally started in the Fall of 2010. There are plenty of posts about that, and you can click on the GradSchool label if you want to read them. Two and a half years later, plus a few extra weeks of revising my thesis, and I was done.
It took about three months before I could even think straight, or as straight as I ever do. My brain was so wiped out from attempting all that higher-level thought that I couldn't really manage regular life. I'm just now starting to get back to a semblance of having a non-student life. Part of it has just been rearranging my schedule. My best higher-level thinking hours are from about 8 p.m. until 1 a.m., so I got in the habit of frittering the day away so I could save my mental energy for those night time study sessions. Just in the last month or so I've finally started to figure out how to re-orient my day so I can get things done. Not to mention having to move my mental energy back here, geographically speaking, instead of having it centered down there, in UTown.
So now what? I'm teaching those non-credit classes I told you about (if enough people sign up for them-- minimum enrollment for the class to proceed is six). I talked to a friend yesterday about how to start getting some editing jobs/experience. I talked to another self-employed friend about helping out with some admin tasks. Those are bits and pieces that will keep me going for awhile, but I'm not sure where it will end up. I guess I don't have to know.
There will be another one of these, about things I learned in grad school that I'm still thinking about. But this is just mainly to say that I'm having a harder time than I expected letting go of being a student. Not even that I still want to be a student, but it gave me an identity, a place where I belonged--if only because I was paying tuition. I miss that. I guess I'll be floundering for awhile, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
(If you've been around awhile, the rest of this is old news, so you can skip down to the end now.) It's no secret to anyone that knows me that I've had a hard time finding something to do since we moved to Montana, twenty-one years ago now. I worked as a database programmer/analyst before we moved, and at the time when we arrived, there just weren't any businesses here doing that kind of thing. I've held a variety of part-time jobs in the intervening years, and had a great time raising our kids here and exploring the area, but I've never really found something to do, and I've never been one to find fulfillment in homemaking (although I admire people who do).
Going back to school was really the result of a dare. It wasn't exactly worded that way, but Dean threw down the gauntlet one time (I'm not sure he really even meant to) when I was complaining about how much I missed having intellectual challenges and stimulation, so I took my courage in both hands and tottered off to the community college to see what I could find. Since I already had a four-year degree and two years of grad school under my belt, you would think I would see junior college as a piece of cake, but I was terrified. I'd been out of school so long, and I was so much older than everyone else.
That first semester I signed up for Chinese and Java programming. Chinese, just because it was brand new at our school and it sounded fun and exotic, and programming because even though I'd done all sorts of different application-level programming, I'd never actually taken a class that was strictly about writing code.
Both of the classes were great, but it quickly became apparent that neither was going to yield a long-term path to a job. The Chinese professor was just here visiting for one year, and the programming professor gently told me one day after class that even though I was making an A in the class, there was almost no chance I'd get hired for a programming job when there are plenty of 25-year-old unmarried childless computer whizzes in our area competing for the same jobs. They're willing to stay up all night to meet a deadline, amped up on Red Bull and M&Ms, but I'm not. I've always been grateful for his honesty, even though it was discouraging to hear.
So it occurred to me that I could finally finish the master's in English literature that I'd abandoned 20 years before. I spent several weeks investigating the possibilities of working online with a professor from the school I originally attended, or doing it completely online at a different school, or commuting down to our state university. I finally decided on commuting to UTown, even though it meant I would have to start over, because neither of the other two options provided one of the main things I needed--to get out of the house.
Then it took a semester of prep work to get through the prerequisites for even turning in an application, and a semester to wait and see if I got in, and then I finally started in the Fall of 2010. There are plenty of posts about that, and you can click on the GradSchool label if you want to read them. Two and a half years later, plus a few extra weeks of revising my thesis, and I was done.
It took about three months before I could even think straight, or as straight as I ever do. My brain was so wiped out from attempting all that higher-level thought that I couldn't really manage regular life. I'm just now starting to get back to a semblance of having a non-student life. Part of it has just been rearranging my schedule. My best higher-level thinking hours are from about 8 p.m. until 1 a.m., so I got in the habit of frittering the day away so I could save my mental energy for those night time study sessions. Just in the last month or so I've finally started to figure out how to re-orient my day so I can get things done. Not to mention having to move my mental energy back here, geographically speaking, instead of having it centered down there, in UTown.
So now what? I'm teaching those non-credit classes I told you about (if enough people sign up for them-- minimum enrollment for the class to proceed is six). I talked to a friend yesterday about how to start getting some editing jobs/experience. I talked to another self-employed friend about helping out with some admin tasks. Those are bits and pieces that will keep me going for awhile, but I'm not sure where it will end up. I guess I don't have to know.
There will be another one of these, about things I learned in grad school that I'm still thinking about. But this is just mainly to say that I'm having a harder time than I expected letting go of being a student. Not even that I still want to be a student, but it gave me an identity, a place where I belonged--if only because I was paying tuition. I miss that. I guess I'll be floundering for awhile, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Riffday: it was ninety-nine cents!
1. We hiked 10 miles with 4300+ feet of elevation gain (and loss, which is almost worse) yesterday. Not kidding. Would I kid about something like that? I can walk today, but barely. Once my knees (and hips and quads and feet and etc) quit aching, I'm sure I will appreciate that I got to see such incredible views (and they were incredible), but at the moment, I sort of just wish I wasn't sore.
2. But I can't post pictures tonight because I'm on the road again and the camera is at home. I'm on my way to meet up with Julie (hey!! twice in one month!) and Karen (whom I feel like I've known forever but have never actually met). Will report back, and maybe even post a picture or two.
3. Dean and I played in church this morning--the offertory and the "special music." He plays guitar, I play flute. We look very sweet and couple-y up there, and no one ever knows that we might have nearly killed each other over deciding what to play and how to play it. We did a couple of John Michael Talbot songs this time and they have been running around in my head ever since, even in the face of a concerted effort to dislodge them by listening to P!nk and Len and Imagine Dragons while I was driving along in the car.
4. Another thing I listened to was the audio version of "Beethoven's Shadow" by Jonathan Biss. Biss is a concert pianist, and if you're at all interested in piano or Beethoven or classical music in general, it's a must-read (or must-listen, as the case may be). It's also really interesting if you enjoy an intelligent discussion about art, or the development of an artist, or listening to an artist talk about his work. And it even scored points for getting me to think about writing, in a cross-pollination sort of way. There are similarities (and vast differences) between what he does when he sits down at a piano to interpret a great piece of music and what a writer does when she sits down in front of a blank page, and making the mental comparison (even though he never mentions it) was fascinating to me. Highly recommended, although he sort of lost me toward the end. (and if you're an Audible member, it's free through the end of the month in their "Happy Christmas in July" promotion.)
5. I took down the poll as soon as we got home from vacation (eyesore!) but I forgot to say how it turned out. Y'all are remarkably reluctant to respond, I must say. That post had 38 counted pageviews (which means there were probably 25% or so more than that), and only 7 of you responded. *shakes head* As will surprise no one who has been around me for the past couple of years, I can't remember what the results were. I know, I know, there were only SEVEN votes. Four, one, and two, but I can't remember which response was which. So, my first poll was what they call an epic fail. Except I did learn that you, my dear readers, don't like to participate in polls. At least, not here.
6. Several times now I've wanted to discuss vigilante-ism in popular novels because it's starting to bug me. Seems like practically every novel I've read this summer (and several more over the past couple of years) has someone taking the law into their own hands and blowing away the bad guy, accompanied by a very high-minded, elevated moral tone about how it's the right thing to do. I so thoroughly disagree with this that I'm having a hard time getting through the novel I'm reading right now (The Hum and The Shiver by Alex Bledsoe) even though it's otherwise really, really good. You know me well enough by now to know that the last thing I want is to start a political discussion here, but *cough* George Zimmerman *cough.* The reason I'm sticking this in a single paragraph near the end of a boring post is because I don't really feel competent to write an entire serious post on the subject. But I feel pretty strongly about it. In books, it's always someone who is really wise and experienced so that somehow they know who the people are who deserve to die, but in real life, it's rarely all that clear, and it just ends up with neighbors suspiciously eyeing neighbors as they stockpile AK-47s in the rec room and take pot shots out the back window. Stop it already.
7. PellMel has been hitting the thrift shops to outfit her new apartment. She shared apartments with other girls in undergrad, but this is her first time having to put it all together herself. She's found some great deals. I've been with her a few times, but I discovered that they often have large used book sections and we all know the last thing I need is more books. Put the book down and back away from the book section. Danger lurks everywhere.
2. But I can't post pictures tonight because I'm on the road again and the camera is at home. I'm on my way to meet up with Julie (hey!! twice in one month!) and Karen (whom I feel like I've known forever but have never actually met). Will report back, and maybe even post a picture or two.
3. Dean and I played in church this morning--the offertory and the "special music." He plays guitar, I play flute. We look very sweet and couple-y up there, and no one ever knows that we might have nearly killed each other over deciding what to play and how to play it. We did a couple of John Michael Talbot songs this time and they have been running around in my head ever since, even in the face of a concerted effort to dislodge them by listening to P!nk and Len and Imagine Dragons while I was driving along in the car.
4. Another thing I listened to was the audio version of "Beethoven's Shadow" by Jonathan Biss. Biss is a concert pianist, and if you're at all interested in piano or Beethoven or classical music in general, it's a must-read (or must-listen, as the case may be). It's also really interesting if you enjoy an intelligent discussion about art, or the development of an artist, or listening to an artist talk about his work. And it even scored points for getting me to think about writing, in a cross-pollination sort of way. There are similarities (and vast differences) between what he does when he sits down at a piano to interpret a great piece of music and what a writer does when she sits down in front of a blank page, and making the mental comparison (even though he never mentions it) was fascinating to me. Highly recommended, although he sort of lost me toward the end. (and if you're an Audible member, it's free through the end of the month in their "Happy Christmas in July" promotion.)
5. I took down the poll as soon as we got home from vacation (eyesore!) but I forgot to say how it turned out. Y'all are remarkably reluctant to respond, I must say. That post had 38 counted pageviews (which means there were probably 25% or so more than that), and only 7 of you responded. *shakes head* As will surprise no one who has been around me for the past couple of years, I can't remember what the results were. I know, I know, there were only SEVEN votes. Four, one, and two, but I can't remember which response was which. So, my first poll was what they call an epic fail. Except I did learn that you, my dear readers, don't like to participate in polls. At least, not here.
6. Several times now I've wanted to discuss vigilante-ism in popular novels because it's starting to bug me. Seems like practically every novel I've read this summer (and several more over the past couple of years) has someone taking the law into their own hands and blowing away the bad guy, accompanied by a very high-minded, elevated moral tone about how it's the right thing to do. I so thoroughly disagree with this that I'm having a hard time getting through the novel I'm reading right now (The Hum and The Shiver by Alex Bledsoe) even though it's otherwise really, really good. You know me well enough by now to know that the last thing I want is to start a political discussion here, but *cough* George Zimmerman *cough.* The reason I'm sticking this in a single paragraph near the end of a boring post is because I don't really feel competent to write an entire serious post on the subject. But I feel pretty strongly about it. In books, it's always someone who is really wise and experienced so that somehow they know who the people are who deserve to die, but in real life, it's rarely all that clear, and it just ends up with neighbors suspiciously eyeing neighbors as they stockpile AK-47s in the rec room and take pot shots out the back window. Stop it already.
7. PellMel has been hitting the thrift shops to outfit her new apartment. She shared apartments with other girls in undergrad, but this is her first time having to put it all together herself. She's found some great deals. I've been with her a few times, but I discovered that they often have large used book sections and we all know the last thing I need is more books. Put the book down and back away from the book section. Danger lurks everywhere.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Summer in Montana: The Hike of Shame
It might tell you much about the exciting life I lead as a blogger that even while this was happening, I handed the camera to PellMel so I could have photographic evidence and write it up later. :-P
So, when our hike got cut short the other day due to bear activity, we decided to do part of another nearby hike. I think I've told you before that I'm afraid of heights (see #7 here, for example). The beginning of this hike is next to a 120-foot drop down to a busy road. It's terrifying--to me. Not to anybody else in our crew. But I did it several years ago, so I thought it was going to be OK.
But no. We got about 50 feet out and I started to panic. Dean did his best--walked next to me on the drop-off side of the trail, coached me through it, offered to hold my hand (me: but then we'll BOTH GO OVER).
Finally we had to turn back. I felt like an idiot. It's not that bad--the trail is about 6-8 feet wide, and as you'll see in the pictures, there is a heavy-duty cable covered by a garden hose that is bolted into the side of the mountain. Although in my defense, I didn't turn back until we got to the end of the cable. The cable ended because, my family pointed out, the dropoff isn't as steep at that part. But it was still pretty damn steep and my stomach was having none of it. Or maybe it was my phobic brain. Or something. anyway, here are a few pictures, including one of me where I ducked under the cable and tried to smile in a brave, plucky way.
You know, it just doesn't look that scary when you see it in pictures. But I was terrified.
So, when our hike got cut short the other day due to bear activity, we decided to do part of another nearby hike. I think I've told you before that I'm afraid of heights (see #7 here, for example). The beginning of this hike is next to a 120-foot drop down to a busy road. It's terrifying--to me. Not to anybody else in our crew. But I did it several years ago, so I thought it was going to be OK.
But no. We got about 50 feet out and I started to panic. Dean did his best--walked next to me on the drop-off side of the trail, coached me through it, offered to hold my hand (me: but then we'll BOTH GO OVER).
Finally we had to turn back. I felt like an idiot. It's not that bad--the trail is about 6-8 feet wide, and as you'll see in the pictures, there is a heavy-duty cable covered by a garden hose that is bolted into the side of the mountain. Although in my defense, I didn't turn back until we got to the end of the cable. The cable ended because, my family pointed out, the dropoff isn't as steep at that part. But it was still pretty damn steep and my stomach was having none of it. Or maybe it was my phobic brain. Or something. anyway, here are a few pictures, including one of me where I ducked under the cable and tried to smile in a brave, plucky way.
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| This is looking back just before I gave up and we turned around Look close--you can see the garden hose in the upper left--that's the trail, then the drop off down to the road |
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| PellMel took this one just by pointing the camera down. The garden hose-covered cable is on the right, and that's a bit of the road a hundred feet down on the upper left |
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| See how brave I look? |
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| MadMax and PellMel, clearly NOT BOTHERED by the height -and behind them the ongoing trail with no cable and oh, yeah, sure, less steep sides |
You know, it just doesn't look that scary when you see it in pictures. But I was terrified.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Summer in Montana, or "Why We Put Up with Nine Months of Winter"
Warning: There are a gazillion pictures in this post. If you want to look at it, you can probably click and then go get a cup of tea while all the pictures load. :-)
We have a family tradition of hiking the Hidden Lake trail in Glacier National Park every year. Not many people who live around here do it, because it is the most popular hike in the park and it is always crowded with tourists. But we usually do it in late August or early September when the crowds start to thin, so it's not too bad. This year, PellMel is moving to Bozeman in a couple of weeks, so we had to go ahead.
This was supposed to be the picture of all the tourists, but it didn't turn out very well-- if it were a better picture, you could see little bitty people all the way back to the visitor center:
But in spite of the crowds, there are lots of reasons why it is the most popular hike in the park. For example, bighorn sheep in the parking lot:
There are plenty of wildflowers:
And it's not a very difficult hike. It goes steadily uphill for about the first mile, but then you're just walking along a trail:
There are gorgeous views everywhere you turn:
There's enough snow to lob a few snowballs:
And there is plenty of wildlife to see, like marmots:
and picas (he's exiting the picture on the right, they move so fast it was hard to get a good shot):
and the crowd favorite, mountain goats:
Then, when you get to the top, there is yet another spectacular view:
We were going to hike down to the lake, but it was roped off this year:
So since our hike was cut short, we decided to end by doing the first bit of the almost-as-popular Highline trail, which leaves from the other side of the road, where I made a complete fool out of myself. Stay tuned. Tomorrow, Summer in Montana: The Hike of Shame.
We have a family tradition of hiking the Hidden Lake trail in Glacier National Park every year. Not many people who live around here do it, because it is the most popular hike in the park and it is always crowded with tourists. But we usually do it in late August or early September when the crowds start to thin, so it's not too bad. This year, PellMel is moving to Bozeman in a couple of weeks, so we had to go ahead.
This was supposed to be the picture of all the tourists, but it didn't turn out very well-- if it were a better picture, you could see little bitty people all the way back to the visitor center:
But in spite of the crowds, there are lots of reasons why it is the most popular hike in the park. For example, bighorn sheep in the parking lot:
There are plenty of wildflowers:
And it's not a very difficult hike. It goes steadily uphill for about the first mile, but then you're just walking along a trail:
There are gorgeous views everywhere you turn:
There's enough snow to lob a few snowballs:
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| PellMel and MadMax practicing their skills for next winter |
And there is plenty of wildlife to see, like marmots:
and picas (he's exiting the picture on the right, they move so fast it was hard to get a good shot):
and the crowd favorite, mountain goats:
Then, when you get to the top, there is yet another spectacular view:
We were going to hike down to the lake, but it was roped off this year:
So since our hike was cut short, we decided to end by doing the first bit of the almost-as-popular Highline trail, which leaves from the other side of the road, where I made a complete fool out of myself. Stay tuned. Tomorrow, Summer in Montana: The Hike of Shame.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
vacation thoughts, continued
So ... no surprise-- family reunions bring on hard core nostalgia. There you are with people you've known your whole life, you've done Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter egg hunts and birthdays and pizza and weddings and a few funerals, we've had kids and adopted kids and married and divorced.
And just to really bring on the nostalgia, there we were at that conference center where we spent time every summer growing up. There were some fireworks across the lake the first night we were there, which took me right back to being so mad one morning to wake up and hear that my older sister and Debbie (who had been sleeping on the screened porch) got to see fireworks across the lake, while the three of us younger ones sleeping in the bedrooms missed out. Just like that, I was right there, five years old, jealous, and pissed. Ha. You'd think I could come up with a more flattering memory, but there's the one I've got.
When I was younger, I don't think I fully realized the value of family, of being part of a tribe. I probably still don't, but I know I was fascinated and buoyed up by spending time with them last week. When I was younger, I had so much invested in establishing my own identity, some special uniqueness that turned out to be not all that special or that unique. Now I can look around at my cousins and appreciate how much we are alike, and how rare our particular combination of faults is. [aside: You know, the teacher from my editing class would argue that "special uniqueness" is redundant, but I don't think it is. Well, OK, maybe it is but it still works in this paragraph. Maybe.]
There we are with our blond eyelashes (which never get fully coated by mascara no matter how hard you try), our cerebral interests, our collective introversion (we figured this week that there was one extrovert per family, which is a good thing or we would have all retreated to our rooms and never come out). Most of us have a tendency toward bitchy crankiness that covers hearts utterly loyal and unfailingly willing to help, the same snide and sarcastic sense of humor, and (damn it) chronic headaches. It's comforting to know you're not some weird anomaly. (or if you are, at least you're not the only one.) When I was younger, I wanted to be some sparkling combination of amazing individualized traits, now I'm just happy to know I'm not the only one dealing with my particular burdens.
And then there was the trip to Chicago. I call myself a native Texan, but technically, I'm not. I was born in Philadelphia while my dad was teaching at a college there, and we moved to a town about 30 miles west of Chicago before I was two. We didn't move back to Dallas until the summer I turned seven. But since most of our extended family was in Texas, and many of our vacations involved trips to Dallas to visit them, we always knew we were just temporarily displaced while we were living in the North.
Anyway. Chicago. The first time I went to a movie, we rode the train into Chicago to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Or maybe it was The Jungle Book. I'm not sure, but I remember the train ride and being too hot. And then for my first two years of college, I went back to that school 30 miles west of Chicago where my dad taught, adding more layers of memory.
The Chicago waterfront is an entirely different thing now than it was back then, but even then I always loved going to Chicago. In college we would get on the train and head into the city to go to Uno's for pizza, or the Hyatt for the dessert bar, or to Marshall Field's for frango mints (back when that was the only place you could get them). My friend Dré and I rode the train in one time for the matinée of the stage version of Evita and then went out for lunch at some restaurant at the top of a building somewhere, I don't remember which one. We thought we were quite the sophisticates.
Now, there are all kinds of cool things to do and see at the Chicago waterfront.
At some point last week Crosby Stills and Nash's "Southern Cross" played and I was so swamped with nostalgia for the early 80s that I could barely stand. Which seemed kind of funny. I've never been one for sentimentalism or nostalgia. I've never wanted to go back to my childhood or be 25 again or god knows not 14. But it hit me hard last week. It was a simpler time, yes? Maybe the reason I've never longed for the past is because I always thought the present was better. If you're a woman, there is no time period in the history of our planet better to be alive than the last fifty years.
Nowadays, I'm finally not so sure that the present is better. Things were a lot less complicated back then. Or maybe it's just seems that way because I was younger and less complicated myself. Either way, it hit me hard last week.
When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand now why you came this way
Cause the truth you might be runnin' from is so small
But it's as big as the promise, the promise of the coming day
And just to really bring on the nostalgia, there we were at that conference center where we spent time every summer growing up. There were some fireworks across the lake the first night we were there, which took me right back to being so mad one morning to wake up and hear that my older sister and Debbie (who had been sleeping on the screened porch) got to see fireworks across the lake, while the three of us younger ones sleeping in the bedrooms missed out. Just like that, I was right there, five years old, jealous, and pissed. Ha. You'd think I could come up with a more flattering memory, but there's the one I've got.
When I was younger, I don't think I fully realized the value of family, of being part of a tribe. I probably still don't, but I know I was fascinated and buoyed up by spending time with them last week. When I was younger, I had so much invested in establishing my own identity, some special uniqueness that turned out to be not all that special or that unique. Now I can look around at my cousins and appreciate how much we are alike, and how rare our particular combination of faults is. [aside: You know, the teacher from my editing class would argue that "special uniqueness" is redundant, but I don't think it is. Well, OK, maybe it is but it still works in this paragraph. Maybe.]
There we are with our blond eyelashes (which never get fully coated by mascara no matter how hard you try), our cerebral interests, our collective introversion (we figured this week that there was one extrovert per family, which is a good thing or we would have all retreated to our rooms and never come out). Most of us have a tendency toward bitchy crankiness that covers hearts utterly loyal and unfailingly willing to help, the same snide and sarcastic sense of humor, and (damn it) chronic headaches. It's comforting to know you're not some weird anomaly. (or if you are, at least you're not the only one.) When I was younger, I wanted to be some sparkling combination of amazing individualized traits, now I'm just happy to know I'm not the only one dealing with my particular burdens.
And then there was the trip to Chicago. I call myself a native Texan, but technically, I'm not. I was born in Philadelphia while my dad was teaching at a college there, and we moved to a town about 30 miles west of Chicago before I was two. We didn't move back to Dallas until the summer I turned seven. But since most of our extended family was in Texas, and many of our vacations involved trips to Dallas to visit them, we always knew we were just temporarily displaced while we were living in the North.
Anyway. Chicago. The first time I went to a movie, we rode the train into Chicago to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Or maybe it was The Jungle Book. I'm not sure, but I remember the train ride and being too hot. And then for my first two years of college, I went back to that school 30 miles west of Chicago where my dad taught, adding more layers of memory.
The Chicago waterfront is an entirely different thing now than it was back then, but even then I always loved going to Chicago. In college we would get on the train and head into the city to go to Uno's for pizza, or the Hyatt for the dessert bar, or to Marshall Field's for frango mints (back when that was the only place you could get them). My friend Dré and I rode the train in one time for the matinée of the stage version of Evita and then went out for lunch at some restaurant at the top of a building somewhere, I don't remember which one. We thought we were quite the sophisticates.
Now, there are all kinds of cool things to do and see at the Chicago waterfront.
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| The Bean at Millenium Park (otherwise known as the Cloud Gate) |
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| Like every other tourist there, we took a zillion pictures of ourselves |
At some point last week Crosby Stills and Nash's "Southern Cross" played and I was so swamped with nostalgia for the early 80s that I could barely stand. Which seemed kind of funny. I've never been one for sentimentalism or nostalgia. I've never wanted to go back to my childhood or be 25 again or god knows not 14. But it hit me hard last week. It was a simpler time, yes? Maybe the reason I've never longed for the past is because I always thought the present was better. If you're a woman, there is no time period in the history of our planet better to be alive than the last fifty years.
Nowadays, I'm finally not so sure that the present is better. Things were a lot less complicated back then. Or maybe it's just seems that way because I was younger and less complicated myself. Either way, it hit me hard last week.
When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand now why you came this way
Cause the truth you might be runnin' from is so small
But it's as big as the promise, the promise of the coming day
Think about
Think about how many times I have fallen
Spirits are using me larger voices callin'
What Heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten
I have been around the world
Lookin' for that woman girl
Who knows love can endure
And you know it will, and you know it will yes
Think about how many times I have fallen
Spirits are using me larger voices callin'
What Heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten
I have been around the world
Lookin' for that woman girl
Who knows love can endure
And you know it will, and you know it will yes
Monday, July 15, 2013
Riffday: Greetings from the friendly confines
Hi! We got home late Friday night (Saturday morning, actually), and spent all weekend recovering. I've only done one load of laundry so far so you can imagine the piles of laundry that are still waiting to be done. Eventually.
We started out in Oregon at the wedding of the son of some dear friends. The wedding was beautiful, and the bride and groom were beaming with happiness. Nice to see that when it happens. We wish them well, from the bottom of our hearts.
Then on Saturday, Julie UrthaLun drove up from Eugene and we spent the afternoon and a good bit of the evening talking non-stop (there is a picture here). We wandered around the Oregon state capitol and walked around the riverfront park and talked. It is always fun to see a blog friend in person and have a real talk, and she had good insights into some things I've been thinking about. Wish we could do that more often.
So then we hopped on a plane and flew all day to Chicago, got a rental car, and drove an hour and a half to Northern Indiana, to a conference center we used to visit when we were kids. It was time for my family's tri-ennial reunion (tri-ennial means every three years, right?). My sisters and almost all my cousins were there, with their spouses and families. We let various parents, aunts, and uncles tag along, too, if they're nice, but mainly it is The Cousins. We have a blast.
It was a great week. Ahead of time, I always wonder what we're going to do during our family reunions, but that is never a problem. The week flies by. Mainly we sit and talk. Sometimes we go for walks, and many games are played and jigsaw puzzles completed, but those are mainly excuses for more talking. Our family game is Rook, and we are a bit demented about it. I only played the last night, but if you went in the meeting room any time after lunch, there was almost always a Rook game going. Any other Rook players out there? two decks, call your partner?
Dean, MadMax and I went into Chicago one day. We saw the Chicago Symphony rehearsing outdoors at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion; we spent several hours in the Shedd Aquarium; we took a water taxi on a gorgeous afternoon across the marina to Navy Pier; and we climbed an ungodly number of ramps and stairs to get to our seats in the nosebleed section at Wrigley Field so we could watch the Cubs get stomped by the Angels. It was a fabulous day.
We also go to see Debbie, of Stop Her She's Knitting. We have practically been part of each other's families since we were toddlers. If you click here, you can see the pictoral evidence. I have almost forgiven her for taking my picture while we were out on a morning walk, pre-shower and in the midst of the worst humidity I have had the pleasure to experience in decades. Only someone near and dear to my heart could get away with that.
So now we're home, facing mountains of laundry and trying to get up the energy to get things done in the midst of a summer heat wave. Hope you are all enjoying July!
We started out in Oregon at the wedding of the son of some dear friends. The wedding was beautiful, and the bride and groom were beaming with happiness. Nice to see that when it happens. We wish them well, from the bottom of our hearts.
Then on Saturday, Julie UrthaLun drove up from Eugene and we spent the afternoon and a good bit of the evening talking non-stop (there is a picture here). We wandered around the Oregon state capitol and walked around the riverfront park and talked. It is always fun to see a blog friend in person and have a real talk, and she had good insights into some things I've been thinking about. Wish we could do that more often.
So then we hopped on a plane and flew all day to Chicago, got a rental car, and drove an hour and a half to Northern Indiana, to a conference center we used to visit when we were kids. It was time for my family's tri-ennial reunion (tri-ennial means every three years, right?). My sisters and almost all my cousins were there, with their spouses and families. We let various parents, aunts, and uncles tag along, too, if they're nice, but mainly it is The Cousins. We have a blast.
It was a great week. Ahead of time, I always wonder what we're going to do during our family reunions, but that is never a problem. The week flies by. Mainly we sit and talk. Sometimes we go for walks, and many games are played and jigsaw puzzles completed, but those are mainly excuses for more talking. Our family game is Rook, and we are a bit demented about it. I only played the last night, but if you went in the meeting room any time after lunch, there was almost always a Rook game going. Any other Rook players out there? two decks, call your partner?
Dean, MadMax and I went into Chicago one day. We saw the Chicago Symphony rehearsing outdoors at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion; we spent several hours in the Shedd Aquarium; we took a water taxi on a gorgeous afternoon across the marina to Navy Pier; and we climbed an ungodly number of ramps and stairs to get to our seats in the nosebleed section at Wrigley Field so we could watch the Cubs get stomped by the Angels. It was a fabulous day.
We also go to see Debbie, of Stop Her She's Knitting. We have practically been part of each other's families since we were toddlers. If you click here, you can see the pictoral evidence. I have almost forgiven her for taking my picture while we were out on a morning walk, pre-shower and in the midst of the worst humidity I have had the pleasure to experience in decades. Only someone near and dear to my heart could get away with that.
So now we're home, facing mountains of laundry and trying to get up the energy to get things done in the midst of a summer heat wave. Hope you are all enjoying July!
Tuesday, July 02, 2013
the fruitcake years: what I learned
So one of the things I did during those years was to join a number of women's spirituality groups. One of my favorite themes for these groups was something along the lines of "Women's Ways of Knowing." We talked about the special accuracy of feelings and emotions, and how sometimes you can know things without being told, and how sometimes intuition, hunches, and gut feelings can lead to more accurate knowledge than logic and scientific reasoning. We talked about how those ways of knowing and understanding are undervalued by our culture, and how those of us who think intuitively as opposed to analytically can be at a disadvantage in an argument or disagreement with someone who wants to coolly use logic and statistics to prove that we are "wrong."
One of the best things I learned while I was investigating all that stuff was not to undervalue the way I think. Sure, someone who is more "rational" and more "logical" can talk circles around me and argue me into the ground, but I no longer fold under that kind of pressure. These days I know myself well enough to know when my inner sense of what is right is ... well, right. Or at least worth pursuing. I may decline to continue the argument, but I no longer give in. I'm damn stubborn that way.
Looking back twenty-ish years later, the distinction we made in those women's circles between the two types of thinking seems overly simplistic now. First of all, because it doesn't make sense to me anymore to divide types of thinking along male/female lines. I know plenty of men who can think intuitively and who value their hunches; I know plenty of women (including me) who are more than capable of being analytical and learning higher level math and scientific reasoning--it's just not my default mode.
But also because there are many more ways of thinking than just two. We need all the types of thinking we can get when trying to make a difficult decision or meet a new challenge. I would never make a major decision (like a job change or a move) based solely on a gut feeling that it was time to change. The gut feeling might be the nudge I need to start looking around and consider various options, but now that I am older and maybe slightly wiser than I used to be, there's no way I would just have a hunch and turn in my resignation letter the next day. I'm not even sure I would have done that when I was nineteen (but I might have).
That being said, there is still a difference between intuitive thinking and sensory thinking. Jung used that polarity--the continuum between gaining knowledge through intuition vs. sensory data--as one of the scales of his famous personality measures, now commonly measured by a test called the Briggs-Meyers. I just googled around and read some descriptions of this, and I'm not sure I agree with some of them. But I'm discussing it anyway. You are forewarned that I am not an expert of any type on this stuff. In fact, I probably don't know what the hell I'm talking about. It just interests me.
Take the example of walking into a room with several people in it. Everyone will see the same things: a woman wearing a blue sweater sitting on a brown sofa on the left, a man wearing a charcoal gray suit and navy blue tie leaning against the back wall, a child sitting on the floor to the right playing with small toys.
A person who leans toward sensory thinking will remember exactly that--the physical details of what she sees. A person who leans toward intuitive ways of knowing may not remember the color of the sofa or whether or the type of shoes the man was wearing, but he might unconsciously put together the exact same visual data and get a feel for the "mood" of the room-- tense, angry, irritated, relaxed, happy. The sensory person might notice that the man is facing away from the woman and is tapping his toe insistently. The intuitive person infers that he seems ill-at-ease and might be nervous or mad about something.
Of course, nobody is entirely one way or the other. But people who lean toward the sensing pole will want "the facts, just the facts." Those who lean toward intuition will be willing to extrapolate and interpret-- in fact, they won't just be willing, they will be unable to stop themselves because that is how they "see."
A sensing person will come away with a physical description of the room and the people in it, the intuitive person will turn away thinking, wow, you could cut the tension in that room with a knife. The intuitive might already be spinning possible stories about why there is so much tension in the air (are they the child's parents? are they angry because of something the child did? are they tense because they are waiting for something?).
And since I am one of those intuitive people, I can tell you that we're often right. (Although based on my own experience, I will add that even thought I am often right about the mood or attitude of a group of people, I am less likely to be right about the story I spin to explain it.) Intuitives can be a valuable resource for sensory people because we notice moods, attitudes, and emotions that the sensory people miss. Just like the sensing person is a valuable resource for me because I often don't remember the physical details of my experience.
But I can also provide that balance within myself--using my innate tendency to see things intuitively to inform my ability to think analytically. Which has been a pretty cool thing to learn over the years.
One of the best things I learned while I was investigating all that stuff was not to undervalue the way I think. Sure, someone who is more "rational" and more "logical" can talk circles around me and argue me into the ground, but I no longer fold under that kind of pressure. These days I know myself well enough to know when my inner sense of what is right is ... well, right. Or at least worth pursuing. I may decline to continue the argument, but I no longer give in. I'm damn stubborn that way.
Looking back twenty-ish years later, the distinction we made in those women's circles between the two types of thinking seems overly simplistic now. First of all, because it doesn't make sense to me anymore to divide types of thinking along male/female lines. I know plenty of men who can think intuitively and who value their hunches; I know plenty of women (including me) who are more than capable of being analytical and learning higher level math and scientific reasoning--it's just not my default mode.
But also because there are many more ways of thinking than just two. We need all the types of thinking we can get when trying to make a difficult decision or meet a new challenge. I would never make a major decision (like a job change or a move) based solely on a gut feeling that it was time to change. The gut feeling might be the nudge I need to start looking around and consider various options, but now that I am older and maybe slightly wiser than I used to be, there's no way I would just have a hunch and turn in my resignation letter the next day. I'm not even sure I would have done that when I was nineteen (but I might have).
That being said, there is still a difference between intuitive thinking and sensory thinking. Jung used that polarity--the continuum between gaining knowledge through intuition vs. sensory data--as one of the scales of his famous personality measures, now commonly measured by a test called the Briggs-Meyers. I just googled around and read some descriptions of this, and I'm not sure I agree with some of them. But I'm discussing it anyway. You are forewarned that I am not an expert of any type on this stuff. In fact, I probably don't know what the hell I'm talking about. It just interests me.
Take the example of walking into a room with several people in it. Everyone will see the same things: a woman wearing a blue sweater sitting on a brown sofa on the left, a man wearing a charcoal gray suit and navy blue tie leaning against the back wall, a child sitting on the floor to the right playing with small toys.
A person who leans toward sensory thinking will remember exactly that--the physical details of what she sees. A person who leans toward intuitive ways of knowing may not remember the color of the sofa or whether or the type of shoes the man was wearing, but he might unconsciously put together the exact same visual data and get a feel for the "mood" of the room-- tense, angry, irritated, relaxed, happy. The sensory person might notice that the man is facing away from the woman and is tapping his toe insistently. The intuitive person infers that he seems ill-at-ease and might be nervous or mad about something.
Of course, nobody is entirely one way or the other. But people who lean toward the sensing pole will want "the facts, just the facts." Those who lean toward intuition will be willing to extrapolate and interpret-- in fact, they won't just be willing, they will be unable to stop themselves because that is how they "see."
A sensing person will come away with a physical description of the room and the people in it, the intuitive person will turn away thinking, wow, you could cut the tension in that room with a knife. The intuitive might already be spinning possible stories about why there is so much tension in the air (are they the child's parents? are they angry because of something the child did? are they tense because they are waiting for something?).
And since I am one of those intuitive people, I can tell you that we're often right. (Although based on my own experience, I will add that even thought I am often right about the mood or attitude of a group of people, I am less likely to be right about the story I spin to explain it.) Intuitives can be a valuable resource for sensory people because we notice moods, attitudes, and emotions that the sensory people miss. Just like the sensing person is a valuable resource for me because I often don't remember the physical details of my experience.
But I can also provide that balance within myself--using my innate tendency to see things intuitively to inform my ability to think analytically. Which has been a pretty cool thing to learn over the years.
Monday, July 01, 2013
I'd rather be a comma than a full stop (and a poll!)
The next fruitcake post is half-written but I haven't found the energy to finish it yet. It is so freaking hot here. It's supposed to get up to 96 today, and since it so rarely does that, we don't have air conditioning. We just have 27 fans going round the clock, and let me tell you, they are not enough. Excuse me while I go plunge my head into ice water, and then I'll come back and finish.
So, what else is going on around here.
I just finished a six-week online course on copyediting. It was surprisingly fascinating to me. I signed up on a whim, thinking it would be a good set of skills to have given the things that I'm interested in, but not ever imagining that I would want to be an editor. But as I worked my way through the lessons, I realized that it is exactly the kind of stuff I'm interested in. I've got a manuscript of my mom's to work on (an old one, I'm not nearly experienced enough to tackle her new one), and if you know of anyone else who might need editing done and wouldn't mind having an apprentice editor do the work, e-mail me (the link to my e-mail is on my profile page).
There was one point where I wasn't sure I agreed with the instructor, so I'm taking opinions. I just figured out how to add a "real" opinion poll. Let's try this--it's over there in the right margin. And I have absolutely no way of knowing whose vote is whose, so this is completely anonymous. Vote with abandon, or let me know what you think in the comments.
Here is the situation: You've labored over a manuscript for months, poured your heart and soul into it, and it is your baby. You take your courage in both hands and send it off to an editor for polishing. The editor finds a sentence that she doesn't understand. Which would you prefer to see in the margin?
I've done some editing for people before, and one of the main things I learned in this class is that I have been way too abrupt in communicating with the author. I assumed that it was better to just bluntly and efficiently state what I thought needed to be changed, because that is what works best for me as a writer (after three years of having my papers graded by academicians, I have had LOTS of recent experience with this). But after reading this instructor's guidelines for dealing with your clients, I'm starting to see that most people would rather have their editorial feedback more gracefully phrased.
The course instructor says option A is bad (sounds like a teacher correcting a student), B is better, and C is the best (non-confrontational and non-blaming, and accepts part of the responsibility for fixing it). I guess I can see that, but as a writer, I would definitely prefer A. Options B and C are wasting my time and hers. Just tell me what needs work and I'll work on it. Also, B and C feel slightly condescending to me, like she feels like I need to be handled, or manipulated into agreeing with her. Option A feels like one professional to another-- this is what needs work. (note that none of the three options says exactly what is unclear-- and that would be the most helpful of all.)
But her point is that most people prefer more gentle criticism. In other words, people are different, and what works for me is not necessarily going to work for anybody else. And I am quite possibly in the minority here. Hence, the poll.
Maybe this correlates with talking on the phone. I hate chit chat. It's one of the main reasons I hate talking on the phone. You can't just say what you need to say and hang up, you have to talk about the weather and where you're going on vacation, etc etc. When I used to have to make PTA phone calls, I would pray to get people's answering machines.
Hmmm. It's occurring to me that I'm kind of bitchy.
I think I will have to work on this. (that is a backhanded way of apologizing to the people whose work I've edited, in case you couldn't tell.) Maybe before I edit for anyone, I will have them take this poll. Also, I had to completely change my blog format so you could see the poll, and it now looks ugly, which is bugging me. But I can change it back later, right?
Other things I learned: It is now incorrect to put two spaces after a period. I knew that was true for online writing (not that I can change, because hello thirty years of typing two spaces after a period), but I didn't know it was true for any other kind of writing.
In the phrase "can't help but" ("I can't help but think you've worked too hard") the but is redundant and should be deleted. ("I can't help thinking you've worked too hard")
Continuous/continual: continuous means continuing on without interruption (their continuous chatter was driving me crazy), continual means continuing with interruptions (continual rain showers throughout the day, i.e., intermittent).
Farther/further: farther refers to physical distance (his house is farther away than hers), further refers to psychological or other non-physical meanings (no further work was required, our friendship could go no further).
And that barely even scratches the surface of what we covered. Since I am a word addict, I loved this class. There are a couple of other ones in the same vein, I may take more.
What are your favorite words to mix up? How do you keep them straight? What are your favorite words to misspell? (mine are occurrence, embarrass, and reconnaissance) And don't forget to respond to the poll!
So, what else is going on around here.
I just finished a six-week online course on copyediting. It was surprisingly fascinating to me. I signed up on a whim, thinking it would be a good set of skills to have given the things that I'm interested in, but not ever imagining that I would want to be an editor. But as I worked my way through the lessons, I realized that it is exactly the kind of stuff I'm interested in. I've got a manuscript of my mom's to work on (an old one, I'm not nearly experienced enough to tackle her new one), and if you know of anyone else who might need editing done and wouldn't mind having an apprentice editor do the work, e-mail me (the link to my e-mail is on my profile page).
There was one point where I wasn't sure I agreed with the instructor, so I'm taking opinions. I just figured out how to add a "real" opinion poll. Let's try this--it's over there in the right margin. And I have absolutely no way of knowing whose vote is whose, so this is completely anonymous. Vote with abandon, or let me know what you think in the comments.
Here is the situation: You've labored over a manuscript for months, poured your heart and soul into it, and it is your baby. You take your courage in both hands and send it off to an editor for polishing. The editor finds a sentence that she doesn't understand. Which would you prefer to see in the margin?
A. "Unclear"Make your choice over there in the right margin before you read on.
B. "I'm not sure what you mean by this sentence. Can you clarify it, please?"
C. "I think I understand what this sentence means, but I'm not sure. If I'm confused, the reader might be, too. Can we work together to clarify it?"
I've done some editing for people before, and one of the main things I learned in this class is that I have been way too abrupt in communicating with the author. I assumed that it was better to just bluntly and efficiently state what I thought needed to be changed, because that is what works best for me as a writer (after three years of having my papers graded by academicians, I have had LOTS of recent experience with this). But after reading this instructor's guidelines for dealing with your clients, I'm starting to see that most people would rather have their editorial feedback more gracefully phrased.
The course instructor says option A is bad (sounds like a teacher correcting a student), B is better, and C is the best (non-confrontational and non-blaming, and accepts part of the responsibility for fixing it). I guess I can see that, but as a writer, I would definitely prefer A. Options B and C are wasting my time and hers. Just tell me what needs work and I'll work on it. Also, B and C feel slightly condescending to me, like she feels like I need to be handled, or manipulated into agreeing with her. Option A feels like one professional to another-- this is what needs work. (note that none of the three options says exactly what is unclear-- and that would be the most helpful of all.)
But her point is that most people prefer more gentle criticism. In other words, people are different, and what works for me is not necessarily going to work for anybody else. And I am quite possibly in the minority here. Hence, the poll.
Maybe this correlates with talking on the phone. I hate chit chat. It's one of the main reasons I hate talking on the phone. You can't just say what you need to say and hang up, you have to talk about the weather and where you're going on vacation, etc etc. When I used to have to make PTA phone calls, I would pray to get people's answering machines.
Hmmm. It's occurring to me that I'm kind of bitchy.
I think I will have to work on this. (that is a backhanded way of apologizing to the people whose work I've edited, in case you couldn't tell.) Maybe before I edit for anyone, I will have them take this poll. Also, I had to completely change my blog format so you could see the poll, and it now looks ugly, which is bugging me. But I can change it back later, right?
Other things I learned: It is now incorrect to put two spaces after a period. I knew that was true for online writing (not that I can change, because hello thirty years of typing two spaces after a period), but I didn't know it was true for any other kind of writing.
In the phrase "can't help but" ("I can't help but think you've worked too hard") the but is redundant and should be deleted. ("I can't help thinking you've worked too hard")
Continuous/continual: continuous means continuing on without interruption (their continuous chatter was driving me crazy), continual means continuing with interruptions (continual rain showers throughout the day, i.e., intermittent).
Farther/further: farther refers to physical distance (his house is farther away than hers), further refers to psychological or other non-physical meanings (no further work was required, our friendship could go no further).
And that barely even scratches the surface of what we covered. Since I am a word addict, I loved this class. There are a couple of other ones in the same vein, I may take more.
What are your favorite words to mix up? How do you keep them straight? What are your favorite words to misspell? (mine are occurrence, embarrass, and reconnaissance) And don't forget to respond to the poll!
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Aunt BeaN: The Fruitcake Years
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.)
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.)
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.)
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