. n ' o u b l i e z - p a s .

commonplaces

2012-01-19T15:30:00.000-08:00

Every true poet is inevitably a Columbus. America existed for centuries before Columbus, but only Columbus succeeded in discovering it.
(Yevgeny Zamyatin, We p. 66)

May you say the things I have tried to say long after I am not there to say them.
(G. B. Smith, in his final letter to J. R. R. Tolkien)

She smiled, her last smile, to so much that had been possible.
(Ayn Rand, We the Living p. 446)

...[I]n Fantasy [man] may actually assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation. All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know.
(J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories")

Making plans is often the occupation of an opulent and boastful mind, which thus obtains the reputation of a creative genius by demanding what it cannot itself supply, by censuring what it cannot improve, and by proposing what it does not know where to find.

(Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena, preface p. 7)

glass project

2012-01-11T10:01:00.000-08:00

Over Thanksgiving break in Boise, Jordan and I got to wax creative at Fusions glass studio. This is what I ended up with: a 5.5 x 10-inch plate.

thesis bibliography (in progress)

2012-01-10T14:48:00.000-08:00

Aristotle. The Basic Works of Aristotle. Edited by Richard McKeon. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.

Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1986.

Chesterton, G. K. The Everlasting Man. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Christian Classics, 2007.

----. Heretics. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Christian Classics, 2007.

----. Manalive. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2000.

----. Orthodoxy. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Christian Classics, 2006.

Dick, Philip K. The Minority Report: And Other Classic Stories by Philip K. Dick. New York: Citadel Press, 2002.

Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Perigree Books, 1954.

Hawke, Ethan, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin, Jude Law, and Loren Dean. Gattaca. Directed by Andrew Niccol. Culver City, CA: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 1997.

Hitchens, Peter. The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. Toronto, ON: Vintage Canada, 2007.

----. Brave New World Revisited. London: Flamingo, 1994.

James, P. D. The Children of Men. London: The Penguin Group, 1994.

Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

----. The Screwtape Letters. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

Locke, John. The Second Treatise of Government and a Letter Concerning Toleration. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2002.

Lowry, Lois. The Giver. New York: Dell Laurel-Leaf Books, 2002.

Moore, Alan and David Lloyd. V for Vendetta. New York: DC Comics, 1989.

More, Thomas, Francis Bacon, and Henry Neville. Three Early Modern Utopias: Utopia, New Atlantis, and The Isle of Pines. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Orwell, George. 1984. Markham, ON: Penguin Books, 1984.

Pascal, Blaise. Pensees and Other Writings. Edited by Anthony Levi. Translated by Honor Levi. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Plato. The Republic. Translated by Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books, 1991.

Portman, Natalie, and Hugo Weaving. V for Vendetta. DVD. Directed by James McTeague. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2006.

Rand, Ayn. Anthem. New York: Signet, 1946.

----. Atlas Shrugged. New York: Signet, 2007.

----. The Fountainhead.

----. The Virtue of Selfishness. New York: Signet, 1964.

Tolkien, J. R. R. A Tolkien Miscellany. New York: The Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.

Wells, H. G. The Time Machine: An Invention. New York: Modern Library Classics, 2002.

----. When the Sleeper Wakes.

Zamyatin, Yevgeny. We. Translated by Mirra Ginsburg. New York: Eos, 1999.

books of 2011: adding up

2011-12-30T21:55:00.000-08:00

(last year's reading: the long and short awards)

This year's reading: 131 books. 58 were for school, 67 were for fun, and 6 were for thesis (which is school, but I was working ahead on it for fun) (yay!). 8 were audiobooks.

Only 27 were books I'd read before; 104 were for the first time.

My most-read authors were Laurie R. King (11 titles: the entire Mary Russell series, rather addictive) and C. S. Lewis (9, including two volumes of poetry).

3 got reread: The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King, For the Life of the World by Alexander Schmemann, and Fruit of Lips by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy.

I guess that also tells you which were my favorites.

Others would definitely be Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh and The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. Consider them recommended.

Happy new year!

christmas shoes

2011-12-28T01:24:00.001-08:00

(ballroom dancing heels)

First Sunday in Advent

2011-11-29T08:29:00.000-08:00

The Epistle. Romans 13:8-14.

Owe no man anything but to love one another, for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.

The Collect.

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

C. S. Lewis, "Prayer"

2011-11-20T18:33:00.000-08:00

Master, they say that when I seem
To be in speech with you,
Since you make no replies, it's all a dream
--One talker aping two.

They are half right, but not as they
Imagine, rather, I
Seek in myself the things I meant to say,
And lo! the wells are dry.

Then, seeing me empty, you forsake
The Listener's role, and through
My dead lips breathe and into utterance wake
The thoughts I never knew.

And thus you neither need reply
Nor can; thus, while we seem
Two talking, thou art One forever, and I
No dreamer, but thy dream.

from milton, "areopagitica"

2011-11-18T12:19:00.000-08:00

(written against censorship in publishing)

For Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous Dragons teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, God's Image; but he who destroys a good Book, kills reason itself, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the Earth; but a good Book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. 'Tis true, no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole Nations fare the worse.

no furniture so charming as books

2011-10-29T22:57:00.000-07:00

especially when they're color-coordinated Lauryl-style. I'm tired of trying to organize books by subject. Plus, they look gross all mixed together. This is totally happening to my enormous built-in shelves back in Canada the next time I'm at home.

ready, set, halloween

2011-10-26T22:44:00.000-07:00

x-ray photography

2011-10-17T18:00:00.000-07:00

(as if my insatiable love for photos of flowers needed any more help.)

Thanskgiving, belated

2011-10-14T22:35:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I was thankful for half an hour home alone to spend playing piano.
I'm thankful that when I didn't want to take piano lessons, my mom still taught me to read music.
I'm thankful for all my friends who did take piano lessons and made me jealous.
I'm thankful for parents who, when I decided that I wanted to take piano after all, spent their money and time to make it happen, and for my two fabulous teachers.
I'm thankful for Johann Pachelbel writing his Canon in D and George Winston for putting it in C and spelling it with a k.
I'm thankful for my roommate who gave me the George Winston album to begin with, and my parents who gave me the sheet music, and my other roommate's parents who gave her a keyboard.
I'm thankful for school vacations that magically align with Canadian thanksgiving every year, and wonderful families and friends to spend the week at home with, and more wonderful friends at school to come back to.
I'm thankful that my one roommate has a boyfriend to visit, and my other roommate has a sister to visit, and I have half an hour to spend alone, playing piano.

"The Lodger"

2011-10-01T09:47:00.000-07:00

After I had beaten my sword into a ploughshare,
I beat my ploughshare into a hoe,
then beat the hoe into a fork,
which I used to eat my dinner alone.

And when I had finished dinner,
I beat my fork into a toothpick,
which I twirled on my lips
then flicked over a low stone wall

as I walked along the city river
under the clouds and stars,
quite happy but for the thought
that I should have beaten that toothpick into a shilling

so I could buy a newspaper to read
after climbing the stairs to my room.

- from The Trouble with Poetry, Billy Collins

toast

2011-09-28T12:03:00.000-07:00

Ten past twelve
is always a hungry time of night.
I wash dishes while I wait for my toast,
and I wish
I could somehow wash the knife
that I will use for the butter and jam
now, while I wait,
instead of afterwards.
It's so inefficient, living linearly.
And as I wait for the toast,
I think of other ways this could apply:
I could be doing my hair now,
not going to bed to tangle it;
writing my term paper now,
and being at a loss for words later,
during my week off,
when I will have plenty of time for that;
I could have gotten over you years ago,
so as to be better prepared
for this week,
but I didn't, and I'm not.

*disclaimer: No, I'm not depressed. If I were, I wouldn't be writing about it and putting it on the internet.

Not worrying.

2011-08-05T00:43:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: yes, dieting serves many legitimate health-related functions.]

However.

For many of us trying to lose weight, health is not the problem. My health is just fine. But college leads to late night studying which leads to stress which leads to junk food, which leaves me making good resolutions and more or less carrying them out.

Then my read-the-Bible-in-13-weeks plan got me into Matthew, and something in the Sermon on the Mount lit up in a new, possibly weird, but very humbling way.

"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?" (Matt. 6:25)

Food shouldn't be the point, whether the problem is undereating as a way to fit into a smaller pair of pants or overeating as a substitute for true community. Stop worrying about how many calories in your lunch are from fat, stop making chocolate the answer for a long day at work, and seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

"And Death Shall Have No Dominion"

2011-06-25T22:15:00.000-07:00

[Today, Tabitha and Rose and I raided the Book Man, and I came out with the collected poems of Dylan Thomas. So far, this is my favorite.]

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one.
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

- Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

summer workout & audiobooks!

2011-06-16T17:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a fun one that'll still fit into the remainder of your summer: the hundred pushups challenge. Start by assessing your pushup ability (or not) and then proceed accordingly through the six-week program. I'm doing week one right now and loving it... and also doing the two hundred squats challenge, which is proving very (i.e., painfully) effective.

And for while you're working out: download some free audiobooks at Books Should Be Free. They have G. K. Chesterton, Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle... tons of great classics. And lots of George Macdonald, too, so of course I'm happy.

Two weeks until Conventiculum. Woohoo!

molasses chocolate chip cookies

2011-06-08T21:45:00.000-07:00

(enlarged and adapted from a recipe from Country Living)

Combine:
- 5 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp. salt
- 2 tsp. cinnamon
- 1 tsp. cloves (ground (obviously))

Elsewhere, cream together and beat with an electric mixer for 5 minutes, until fluffy:
- 1 1/4 cups softened butter/margarine
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup dark brown sugar (I used light brown)
Mix in:
- 3 eggs
Mix in:
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 2 tsp. vanilla

Add and mix in the dry ingredients in 2 installments, and finally, mix in the long-awaited, last but not least, and all that:
2 cups chocolate chips

Roll the dough into balls and flatten them slightly on the pan. These hold their shape rather well when they bake. Although, the raw cookie dough is so delicious (it's even delicious-smelling) that I had some ethical qualms about baking it at all. Bake at 350 for 14 minutes; makes 4.5-5 dozen.

O Thou, In Whose Presence

2011-06-01T21:08:00.000-07:00

O Thou, in Whose presence my soul takes delight
On Whom in affliction I call
My comfort by day, and my song in the night,
My hope, my salvation, my all.

Where dost Thou, dear Shepherd,
Resort with Thy sheep,
To feed them in pastures of love?
Say, why in the valley of death should I weep,
Or alone in this wilderness rove?

Oh why should I wander, an alien from Thee,
Or cry in the desert for bread?
Thy foes will rejoice when my sorrows they see,
And smile at the tears I have shed.

He looks, and ten thousands of angels rejoice,
And myriads wait for His word;
He speaks and eternity, filled with His voice,
Re-echoes the praise of the Lord.

Dear Shepherd, I hear and will follow Thy call,
I know the sweet sound of Thy voice.
Restore and defend me, for Thou art my all,
And in Thee I will ever rejoice.

(Joseph Swain)

goldfinch

2011-05-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

This cute female goldfinch slammed into our (glass) sliding door while I was eating lunch, and took a few minutes to collect herself. How could I resist? It's not every day that you get to pet a wild bird.

chocolate chip granola cookies

2011-05-21T14:44:00.000-07:00

My family has used the same chocolate chip cookie recipe for as long as I can remember, and I've stayed loyal to it. (Just last week, I made a quadruple batch of the stuff.) But now, in a single afternoon, my loyalties have shifted.

(cream together:)
1/2 cup margarine/butter
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup brown sugar

(mix in:)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

(add:)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups granola
1 cup chocolate chips

Bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Makes ~40.

the most beautiful place on earth

2011-05-18T18:10:00.000-07:00

some summer goals

2011-05-16T18:01:00.000-07:00

Last summer I had reading goals, which I kept pace with until the last two weeks of vacay. This summer, I'm still planning to read a lot (lots of it for my senior thesis!), but my actual goals are more linguistic:

I want to dust my Latin off after a year of comparative disuse:
- Reread Lingua Latina I (this will be easy)
- Reread Cupid & Psyche (this will be hard)
- Read Asterix et Fossa Alta

I want to firm up this past year's stock of Greek skills:
- Reread Athenaze Book 1
- Read 1 John (assigned: we're supposed to read it "several" times)

And... then there's French.
French will be the killer. I want to finish the book I've worked on every summer and never gotten past page 79 in. This will mean doing 3 or 4 lessons a week, which is probably unachievable. However, I will die trying.

Easter: Time for Eggs

2011-04-30T22:12:00.000-07:00

Stephanie and Ashley already have an impressive collection of Ukrainian Easter eggs. Lindsey and I basked in their expertise on Good Friday afternoon, and we decorated eggs and ate innumerable zwieback drenched with butter and jam. I made this:

Stephanie's, far from finished:

Lindsey, drawing about a hundred and fifty perfectly straight lines (seriously, she has a gift):

Also, I have no pictures of the making of them, but these are called cascarones. Take a raw egg, remove the end of the shell as if it were soft-boiled, pour out the innards, wash the shell and pop the membrane at the end, dye it, let it dry, fill it with confetti, glue a square of tissue paper over the hole, and on Easter, break it over someone's head for luck.

On Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, Chloe and I invested innumerable more eggs in a quadruple batch of waffles and a big pan of scrambled eggs for Saturday dinner and 20 muffin-sized quiches for Sunday pre-lunch, and we ate and were well-filled. He is risen! Alleluia!

françois schuiten

2011-04-16T12:38:00.000-07:00

"Bibliothèque"

"The Mirror"

"Les Naufrages"

Clearly, I need more walls.

I Will Wait for You

2011-04-10T23:19:00.000-07:00

The most amazing thing I've seen on the internet in a long time.

tomato-basil-feta

2011-04-05T21:17:00.000-07:00

I love sauce, I really do, but for some reason, none of the pizzas I make these days have sauce on them. Anyway, today's was pretty straightforward. (As always, I used the dough recipe from smittenkitchen; usually I double it for a nice thick pizza, but today I used just 2 cups of flour and adjusted everything else accordingly. Which is to say, I vaguely remember how much of everything goes into the normal recipe, but I didn't look, and didn't measure any of it aside from the flour. Live dangerously.)

4 roma tomatoes
3 T white balsamic vinegar (nice because it doesn't mess up the color; also has a lighter flavor than regular balsamic)
1/4 tsp each salt and pepper
I sliced the tomatoes about 1/4 of an inch thick and layered them up in a bowl, drizzling a little vinegar and sprinkling salt and pepper over each layer, then let them sit while I grated up a big pile of feta and ripped a package of fresh basil into smaller pieces. I'd never stopped to just smell fresh basil before. It was enchanting. Fresh cilantro is still my favorite plant smell, though.

With the roma slices each cut in half, and including the heels, I had just the right amount of tomato to cover my crust comfortably. I sprinkled some of the balsamic left in the bowl over them and threw on a tiny bit more salt and pepper before adding the cheese, then baked the whole thing at 375 for probably 20 minutes. (Writing recipes out would be easier if I paid more attention to what I was doing. Oh well.) When it came out, I threw on the basil, and we devoured the whole thing in record time.

For next Tuesday, Kathleen is planning something with zucchini... I'm excited!

"On the twofold sense of the soul."

2011-04-02T12:02:00.000-07:00

Now the rational soul was on this account equipped with a twofold sense, that it might grasp visible things without through the flesh, and invisible things within through reason, so that both visible and invisible things might excite it to praise of the Creator. For God would not be praised in all His works by the rational creature, if all the works of God were not known by the rational creature. Therefore, that the praise of God might be perfect, the works of God were shown to the rational creature, so that it might admire Him within and without, and through admiration advance to love.

One creature was made whose sense was wholly within, and another creature was made whose sense was wholly without. The sense of the angels was within, and the sense of brute animals was without. [...] And man was placed in a middle position, that he might have sense within and without; within for invisible things, without for visible; within through the sense of reason, without through the sense of flesh, that he might go in and contemplate, and might go out and contemplate; that he might have wisdom within, the works of wisdom without, that he might contemplate both, and be refreshed from both, see and rejoice, love and praise. Wisdom was a pasture within within; the work of wisdom was a pasture without. And the sense of man was permitted to go to both, and find refreshment in both, to go by cognition, to be refreshed by love.

Wisdom was a book written within; the work of wisdom a book written without. But He willed afterwards that it still be written otherwise without, that wisdom might be seen more manifestly and recognized more perfectly, that the eye of man might be illumined to the second writing, since it had been darkened to the first. Therefore, He made a second work after the first, and that was more evident, since it not only pointed out but illumined. He assumed flesh not losing divinity, and was placed as a book written within and without; in humanity without, within in divinity, so that it might be read without through imitation, within through contemplation; without unto health, within unto felicity; without unto merit, within unto joy. Within, "In the beginning was the Word,"" (John 1:1); without, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us," (John 1:14).

- Hugh of St. Victor, De Sacramentis Book One, Part Six, Chapter V

sundays and waves

2011-03-27T23:19:00.000-07:00

I love this painting. That's why it's on the wall over my couch, along with a lot of other art.

My mom, who knows this, got me this awesome shirt for Christmas. I wear it swing dancing a lot, thereby combining two things that make me happy. Now if only I could eat chocolate while dancing....

She also gave me a journal. Are you noticing a theme yet?

Now, every time someone gives me a nice journal, I'm left with an ethical dilemma: do I fill this gorgeous book with what will, a few years later, be nothing but humiliating drivel, or do I leave it on the shelf to lead a long life of pristine uselessness?* The latter option tends to prevail, as the unused blue satin journal with a sequined cover that someone gave me for my eleventh birthday bears witness. But I hadn't been keeping a personal diary or journal in a while, and I missed it, so finally, I hit upon a solution that I hope will keep me journalling in a regular and worthwhile manner until the book is full. I'm keeping a journal of Sundays.

For example, this week, the third Sunday of Lent, I went to Sunday school and church, made bread, wrote a birthday letter to Timbrel, played volleyball, watched Tangled, and went to a Psalm sing... or at least, that's the nutshell version. Don't worry, the real entry was a lot more interesting. I want to be able to look back and enjoy remembering the best of my college days (or at least what's left of them now that I'm almost done being a junior) by remembering how I rested.

*Sentences like this one are how you know I'm tired.

double fudge irish cream cookies

2011-03-18T13:04:00.001-07:00

My mom made these for St Patty's yesterday and WOW, were they scrumptious. The raw dough is even better than the finished product.

1 c. butter
1 1/2 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla
1/2 c. Bailey's Irish cream

2 2/3 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. cocoa
1 1/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
1 t. instant coffee
1 c. white chocolate chips
1/2 c. semisweet chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar together; beat in eggs and vanilla. Add Bailey's 1 T. at a time. Add dry ingredients. Refrigerate dough 4-6 hours. Roll into 1" balls and flatten slightly; bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.

Speaking of my mom, happy 50th birthday to you.

thanskgiving pizza

2011-03-12T11:34:00.001-08:00

OK, first off, this really was scrumptious, and if you need the testimony of two or three witnesses, ask my roommates. However, I got a 36-hour stomach bug later that night, and thinking about this pizza still makes me queasy. *sigh* Maybe someday I'll make it again.

From the crust up: half a box of stuffing (prepared, of course); some green peas, cooked; some mozza to stick things together; chopped sandwich-meat-type turkey; more cheese; and lastly, some dried cranberries. It was pretty.

yes, this was completely my own invention.

pearl earrings

2011-03-12T10:48:00.000-08:00

...may become an obsession. Next, I want to find a pearl eyebrow ring for the upper piercing.

5 years ago

2011-03-07T22:55:00.001-08:00

Sometimes, I really miss being a nanny. :-)

papers, in retrospect

2011-02-28T22:58:00.001-08:00

I just had a sudden urge to get all walk-down-memory-lane-ish. Here are the non-assigned topics I've written papers about at NSA. So far it's been pretty fun.

Freshman year (I wash my hands of #1 and #4):
- Why Hamlet is basically toast (a terrible paper if ever there was one)
- Why you should believe in time travel
- Why straight edge is incompatible with Christianity
- Why I don't like Kierkegaard
- Why Pan's Labyrinth is better than The Sixth Sense

Sophomore year:
- Why Hippocrates invented science (one of the most boring papers ever, can't you tell?)
- Why Gone With the Wind was so darn popular (well worth the extra 1,037 pages of research)

Junior year:
- Why the Greeks thought marriage was depressing
- Why Plato and modern subatomic physics are really the same
- Why the snake in Book V of the Aeneid is a ghost
- Why I don't think Augustine believes in radical evil (forthcoming!)

What's the oddest/awesomest thing you've ever written a paper on?

St Bernard

2011-02-16T22:22:00.000-08:00

"[In copies of the Book of Hours,] one also finds eccentric little texts like the verses of St Bernard, sometimes preceded by an anecdote explaining their origin. One day (the rubrics in the Book of hours tell us) the Devil appeared to St Bernard and boasted that he knew of seven special verses in the Psalms so efficacious that whoever recited them daily could not die in sin. Ste Bernard cried, 'What are they? Tell me at once!' 'I shan't,' said the Devil, 'You shall not know them.' St Bernard then replied that he would have the recite the entire Psalter every day in order to be sure of including the seven magic verses, and the Devil, fearing that this excessive devotion would do too much good, quickly revealed the verses."

- Christopher de Hamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts, 176.

Nostalgic Pizza

2011-02-06T13:29:00.000-08:00

I've loved seafood for as long as I can remember. This is my favorite childhood pizza: pepperoni, olives, and shrimp. Also, notice anything? My awesome parents got me REAL pizza pans for Christmas (yay!), and I can just squeeze them into my teeny oven (double yay!).

John Donne

2011-02-05T11:34:00.000-08:00

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and His hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.

- from Meditation XVII

Augustine's Confessions, 5.35, 37

2011-01-31T21:56:00.000-08:00

50. O Lord God, grant us thy peace--for thou hast given us all things. Grant us the peace of quiet, the peace of the Sabbath, the peace without an evening. All this most beautiful array of things, all so very good, will pass away when all their courses are finished--for in them there is both morning and evening.
51. But the seventh day is without an evening, and it has no setting, for thou hast sanctified it with an everlasting duration. After all thy works of creation, which were very good, thou didst rest on the seventh day, although thou hast created them all in unbroken rest--and this so that the voice of thy Book might speak to us with the prior assurance that after our works--and they also are very good because thou hast given them to us--we may find our rest in thee in the Sabbath of life eternal.
53. We con see all those things which thou hast made because they are--but they are because thou seest them. And we see with our eyes that they are, and we see with our minds that they are good. But thou sawest them as made when thou sawest that they would be made.
And now, in this present time, we have been moved to do well, now that our heart has been quickened by thy Spirit; but in the former time, having forsaken thee, we were moved to do evil. But thou, O the one good God,h ast never ceased to do good! And we have accomplished certain good works by thy good gifts, and ever though they are not eternal, still we hope, after these things here, to find our rest in thy great sanctification. But thou art the Good, and needest no rest, and art always at rest, because thou thyself art thy own rest.
What man will teach men to understand this? And what angel will teach the angels? Or what angels will teach men? We must ask it of thee; we must seek it in thee; we must knock for it at thy door. Only thus shall we receive; only thus shall we find; only thus shall thy door be opened.

Augustine's Confessions, 4.11.16

2011-01-29T10:46:00.000-08:00

Be not foolish, O my soul, and do not let the tumult of your vanity deafen the ear of your heart. Be attentive. The Word itself calls you to return, and with him is a place of unperturbed rest, where love is not forsaken unless it first forsakes. Behold, these things pass away that others may come to be in their place. Thus even this lowest level of unity may be made complete in all its parts. "But do I ever pass away?" asks the Word of God. Fix your habitation in him. O my soul, commit whatsoever you have to him. For at long last you are now becoming tired of deceit. Commit to truth whatever you have received from the truth, and you will lose nothing. What is decayed will flourish again; your diseases will be healed; your perishable parts shall be reshaped and renovated, and made whole again in you. And these perishable things will not carry you with them down to where they go when they perish, but shall stand and abide, and you with them, before God, who abides and continues forever.

well, what else is new?

2011-01-22T09:02:00.000-08:00

Take the Quiz here!

the last verse is usually my favorite

2011-01-20T22:34:00.000-08:00

Thou the spring of all my comfort, more than life to me,
whom have I on earth beside thee? Whom in heaven but thee?
Savior, Savior, hear my humble cry;
while on others thou art calling, do not pass me by.

O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy grace, Lord, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.

Here see the Bread of Life; see waters flowing
Forth from the throne of God, pure from above.
Come to the feast of love; come, ever knowing
Earth has no sorrow but Heaven can remove.

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done:
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied, and earth and Heav’n be one.

The Golden Key

2011-01-14T04:02:00.000-08:00

Just in case I haven't already talked your ear off about it....

As long as I can remember, my family has owned a set of George MacDonald paperbacks. It used to be a boxed set, but the box died, leaving behind The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, The Lost Princess, and The Golden Key and Other Stories. Since this was at least twelve years ago and my eight-year-old self wasn't exactly taking notes, I can't say for sure, but I that the first book that I read of the set was The Golden Key and Other Stories, and since The Golden Key is (naturally) the first story in the book, I can more or less say that it was the first thing I ever read by George MacDonald, although I went on to thoroughly enjoy the rest of the unboxed set.

Now I've gotten the chance to translate fairy tales into Latin for academic credit (because my school is amazing like that.) Over the course of the last four weeks, I've been melting down The Golden Key and remolding it into new words, which is pretty addictive and always manages to mess up my sleep schedule. It's a terrific story, one of those stories that I dearly wish were true in fact and have to content myself with knowing to be true in meaning. You should read it. The last two sentences give me goosebumps every time.

Home Alone

2011-01-08T11:49:00.001-08:00

For some reason, January always puts me in the mood to 1) get rid of a huge pile of junk and 2) revamp my apartment. Both have been accomplished today. Before today, these walls had one poster ("The Great Wave of Kanagawa") and one small picture in the place where Salvador Dali's "Meditative Rose" is now. Please disregard the messy bookshelf (unless you'd like to buy one of the books in the top row).

winter river

2010-12-31T17:20:00.000-08:00

the long and the short of 2010 books

2010-12-28T23:10:00.000-08:00

Longest title: Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today (or Six Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door) (Lynne Truss), at 22 words.

Shortest title: Boy (Roald Dahl), at 1 word... obviously. (Have I ever mentioned how much I like that word? Its etymology makes me imagine unperceptive people mentally tripping over self-evident facts in a slapstick violence kind of way.)

Longest-named author: an impressive 17-letter tie between Barbara Diefendorf and Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche can win: his middle name was Wilhelm.

Shortest-named author: Homer and Plato are tied here at 5 letters in English and 6 in Greek, but Plato loses for saying that writing his name down removes it further from its form. Somebody needs an attitude adjustment.

Longest book: Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, at 1,037 deliciously melodramatic pages. So much fun, and all in the name of historical research!

Shortest book: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson, at 67 pages, ish. (It was kidnapped, er, borrowed, so I can't check.)

And on that note, merry Christmas and, just in case I don't post before then, happy new year!

Ezekiel 47 - Revelation 22

2010-12-24T23:36:00.000-08:00

^47:1 Then he brought me back to the door of the temple; and there was water, flowing from under the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the front of the temple faced east; the water was flowing from under the right side of the temple, south of the altar. ² He brought me out by way of the north gate, and led me around on the outside to the outer gateway that faces east; and there was water, running out on the right side.
³ And when the man went out to the east with the line in his hand, he measured one thousand cubits, and he brought me through the waters; the water came up to my ankles. ⁴ Again he measured one thousand and brought me through the waters; the water came up to my knees. Again he measured one thousand and brought me through; the water came up to my waist. ⁵ Again he measured one thousand, and it was a river that I could not cross; for the water was too deep, water in which one must swim, a river that could not be crossed. ⁶ He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this?” Then he brought me and returned me to the bank of the river.
⁷ When I returned, there, along the bank of the river, were very many trees on one side and the other. ⁸ Then he said to me: “This water flows toward the eastern region, goes down into the valley, and enters the sea. When it reaches the sea, its waters are healed. ⁹ And it shall be that every living thing that moves, wherever the rivers go, will live. There will be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters go there; for they will be healed, and everything will live wherever the river goes. ¹⁰ It shall be that fishermen will stand by it from En Gedi to En Eglaim; they will be places for spreading their nets. Their fish will be of the same kinds as the fish of the Great Sea, exceedingly many. ¹¹ But its swamps and marshes will not be healed; they will be given over to salt. ¹² Along the bank of the river, on this side and that, will grow all kinds of trees used for food; their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month, because their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for medicine.”

^22:1 And he showed me a pure^>]"> river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. ² In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. ³ And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. ⁴ They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. ⁵ There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

2010-12-11T18:00:00.001-08:00

O come, O come, Emmanuel!
Redeem thy captive Israel,
That into exile drear is gone
Far from the face of God's dear Son.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, thou branch of Jesse! Draw
The quarry from the lion's claw;
From the dread caverns of the grave,
From nether hell, thy people save.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, thou Dayspring bright!
Pour on our souls thy healing light;
Dispel the long night's lingering gloom,
And pierce the shadows of the tomb.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, thou Lord of David's key!
The royal door fling wide and free;
Safeguard for us the heav'nward road,
And bar the way to death's abode.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Adonai,
Who in thy glorious majesty
From that high mountain clothed with awe
Gavest thy folk the elder law.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

- Translated by T. A. Lacey

winter is almost here

2010-12-01T20:03:00.000-08:00

The cold weather makes my joints ache, and it makes me wonder what having arthritis feels like. Not how people describe it; that would be easy to look up. I wonder what it feels like. What it will feel like when I have it, because I probably will. I know that descriptions are relative. Last year when I had my accident I don't know if the pain was blinding or not because it was pitch black outside. All I know is, it hurt, and it drowned out everything else. All I know now is, the ache in my hands is a soundtrack, background music that plays dissonantly along behind the sound of the keystrokes. Just background music. I can handle it.
I read somewhere once that children don't have the vocabulary to express their emotions. Do any of us? I'm a verbal person. I've written poems that have made my friends cry. But the emotions that I feel most strongly, the ones that are threatening to make me cry right now, and succeeding, are ones that I couldn't tell you about if I tried. The only way I've come close to letting them out is on the piano, and I wish I knew more so I could do it better. But I'm too young. I don't have the vocabulary. I wonder what it will feel like if I ever do. I wonder if I'll learn before my hands are too stiff to play, before the pain gets so loud I won't be able to listen, before arthritis makes me deaf.

Tuesday is still pizza day!

2010-11-30T17:45:00.000-08:00

For the last couple of weeks I've been experimenting with breakfast pizza, but have no pictures to show for it. This recipe is great with either bacon or lunchmeat-type ham. Also, I hate onions, so I put sliced mushrooms on instead.

This week's adventure: asparagus pizza, taken from the smitten kitchen. For lack of scallions, I instead hyped up the flavor with three sliced cloves of garlic... and for the sake of my carnivore roommate, who so bravely eats whatever I throw at her, I added some of those addictive meatballs from Winco, cut in half.

Both of these turned out delicious and made great leftovers.

Proportions

2010-11-24T09:20:00.000-08:00

I'm less of a this-is-what-I-did-today blogger and more of a this-has-been-on-my-mind-lately blogger. This means that the more I have going on in my real life, the less likely I am to blog, an inverse proportion. But now that I've gotten rid of facebook, nobody knows what I'm up to unless I tell them. The proportion of mundane-stuff-I-do to mundane-stuff-everyone-knows-about is suddenly much smaller. Privacy is a magical thing to reclaim.

I got facebook when my brother was a freshman in college. That was just over four years ago. I'm 20. I had facebook for 1/5 of my life, 20%. That's longer than I spent in highland dancing, and facebook devoured a larger piece of my schedule than dance did. Dance counts as a hobby, something interesting you do in your free time.

Facebook went from something interesting to do in my free time to something I did whether I had free time or not.* That's a place of honor that I would prefer to keep available for things that matter a lot more, like... school. My Bible. Sleep. Keeping in touch with friends and family one-on-one by letter or email, rather than just broadcasting one snippet of information for all 733 of my fb-friends to read and forget about. Time for a new hobby, which is really an old one: real people and real life.

* This is not, I repeat not, the reason I deleted my account. Like my beloved brother, I am capable of shutting my laptop and doing something else. It's just the reason I'm not inclined to go back.

vertical autumn

2010-11-07T21:55:00.001-08:00

Last week's pictures were just in time. Today woke up gray and rainy, and the leaves are no longer photogenic. I stayed home, closed the blinds, lit some candles, reorganized my bookshelf, cleaned my fridge, and baked up some leftover chocolate cookie dough from last week. The result: a clean and neat, warm, delicious-smelling apartment. I curled up in the green armchair that used to belong to my parents and read P. G. Wodehouse's The Mating Season and Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron while my roommate Kathleen played Beethoven and Chopin on her keyboard.

Autumn remains my favorite season in all its moods, but I'll stick to taking pictures when it's happy. Out of the ~125 shots I took last Thursday, almost all were horizontal. It's odd: vertical shots make me happy, but I almost never take my own. These three feel like keepers.

N'oubliez-pas means "don't forget," and that's what my blog is for: a collection of things I want to keep, revisit, and remember. The leaves covering 3rd Street on Thursday, November 3, 2010 are among them.

autumn as it ought to be

2010-11-05T21:59:00.000-07:00

Autumn Baking

2010-10-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

Italian cheese twists (thefrugalgirl.com): cheesy-garlicky goodness. The best part is the crunchy bottom surface.

Chocolate molasses cookies (countryliving.com): I was never a huge fan of molasses cookies, but thanks to Lindsey, my views are changing.

Apple cheddar scones (allrecipes.com): the softest, yummiest, cheesiest scone I have ever tasted. An addiction in the making.

Pie crust 102 & 103: this produced the best pie crust I've ever eaten. I was the demiurge and smittenkitchen.com was the home of the forms.

Excuse me. I need to go renew my gym membership.

samosas: my first deep-frying attempt

2010-10-28T17:26:00.001-07:00

What started out as a craving for mashed potatoes turned into mashed potatoes sown in corruption and raised in glory: samosas. And they turned out rather well! Here's the recipe, which I mostly followed. The main differences were adding in some peas and cooked shredded carrot, and using sauteed yellow onion instead of green.
[Sorry about the picture quality. I blame it on the borrowed camera.]

last term's reading

2010-10-24T20:54:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: there are a few here that we didn't read all of, but we took at least a good chunk out of them.

perogy pizza

2010-10-20T00:02:00.000-07:00

Or, if the word "perogy" means nothing to you, you could call it baked potato pizza.

You will need...

3 cups of mashed potatoes, ish
1 tsp salt to make the potatoes taste better
1 onion, diced and sauteed
Olive oil for sauteing the onion

Mix the sauteed onion into the potatoes and let them sit in the fridge overnight and get to know each other. The next day, get your crust ready and spread the potatoes over it; I made them about 1/2 inch thick. Then top the potatoes with...

2 cups shredded cheddar
8-10 bacon slices, fried crispy and cut up

Bake this for ~20 minutes at 425, or at your discretion, and eat it with sour cream. This is the most filling pizza I have ever encountered, so use discretion when you're eating it, too.

Psalm 90

2010-10-19T23:55:00.001-07:00

Over the last few months, I've gone back to this Psalm again and again; it's a prayer for when I run out of my own words. I think it's time to just settle down and memorize it.

Psalm 90: A Prayer of Moses the man of God.

¹ Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
² Before the mountains were brought forth,
Or ever You had formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.

³ You turn man to destruction,
And say, “Return, O children of men.”
⁴ For a thousand years in Your sight
Are like yesterday when it is past,
And like a watch in the night.
⁵ You carry them away like a flood;
They are like a sleep.
In the morning they are like grass which grows up:
⁶ In the morning it flourishes and grows up;
In the evening it is cut down and withers.

⁷ For we have been consumed by Your anger,
And by Your wrath we are terrified.
⁸ You have set our iniquities before You,
Our secret sins in the light of Your countenance.
⁹ For all our days have passed away in Your wrath;
We finish our years like a sigh.
¹⁰ The days of our lives are seventy years;
And if by reason of strength they are eighty years,
Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow;
For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
¹¹ Who knows the power of Your anger?
For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath.
¹² So teach us to number our days,
That we may gain a heart of wisdom.

¹³ Return, O LORD! How long?
And have compassion on Your servants.
¹⁴ Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy,
That we may rejoice and be glad all our days!
¹⁵ Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us,
The years in which we have seen evil.
¹⁶ Let Your work appear to Your servants,
And Your glory to their children.
¹⁷ And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us,
And establish the work of our hands for us;
Yes, establish the work of our hands.

sometimes,

2010-09-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

this is how school makes me feel.

Today is not one of those days.

Kopha cookies: my great-grandma Klassen's recipe

2010-09-11T12:36:00.000-07:00

Cream together 1/2 cup butter and 1/4 cup granulated sugar
and mix in 1 egg.

Sift in 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour and 1 T baking powder
and add 1/2 cup finely shredded coconut and 1 T milk.

Mix it all up to look like this. Yes, it's insanely dry.

Roll it into donut hole-sized balls like this (one batch should make about 16):

Roll each ball in more coconut and poke the middle of it with your little finger:

Fill the holes with jam (traditionally apricot, but also good with raspberry or strawberry), and bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes.

from the vault

2010-09-10T08:45:00.001-07:00

tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

2010-08-18T09:28:00.000-07:00

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

- Macbeth, Act V Scene v

I could listen to Dr Leithart read Shakespeare all day.

whining

2010-07-28T23:05:00.000-07:00

We humans spend a remarkable amount of time complaining (at least internally, if not verbally) about things that we're actually grateful for. With me, it's usually, "This job is boring, I'm tired, I don't want to be here." I get so caught up in one moment of how I feel that I ignore what a blessing it is to have a job at all, and especially a fun, convenient, flexible job with great coworkers.

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Maybe our grateful speech outweighs the ungrateful, but all that leaves us with is a big jumble of hypocrisy. We can sing the Doxology in church, but if we spend the other six days of the week griping, our "Praise God from Whom all blessings flow" isn't doing us much good.

James gives complaints and ingratitude no quarter, no matter who we're complaining about: "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be." One person speaking both curses and praise--true praise--is like a spring that gives both fresh and salty water: impossible. It's one or the other, all or nothing.

I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

Summer Reading #3

2010-07-23T19:46:00.001-07:00

Conventiculum left me with no time (or brainpower) for reading, so I lost nearly two weeks.

Alan M. Dershowitz, Reasonable Doubts: As a child of the 90's, I was too busy learning the alphabet to follow the O. J. Simpson trial. This book presents the case in full and explains why the jury didn't convict... hence the title. I feel broadened and educated.

Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo: Not what I was expecting, but nevertheless good fodder for my love of 19th-century French lit. But... my copy is an abridgement! Not cool.

Henry James, Washington Square: It can't compete with James's masterpiece The Portrait of a Lady, but still has its share of keen observations and finely-drawn characters in less-than-ideal circumstances. And, it's mentioned in The Big Oyster....

Mark Kurlansky, The Big Oyster: History on the Half-Shell: This book combines two of my favorite things, seafood and New York, into a fascinating portrait of a city, its industry, and its food. This and Salt have placed me firmly in Kurlansky's fan base.

Robin McKinley, Sunshine (not pictured): Not the best I've read from this author, but a pleasant diversion... if you like off-the-beaten-track vampire fiction. 14a (that's a Canadian movie rating) for language and one sketchy bit. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Eve Titus, Basil of Baker Street: The book that inspired my favorite Disney movie: a perfect birthday present, bite-sized at 70 pages. So cute!

N. D. Wilson, Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl: This world is a spinning miracle. I'm glad I finally took a minute to stand back and look at it from N. D.'s ever-fresh perspective.

Ben H. Winters, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters: This licks its zombie predecessor hollow, actually adding multiple twists and sidelines to the plot (rather than just inserting monsters into every other scene.) The result: delightfully bizarre.

Books: 8

Pages: 2321

If you read one, read: Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl (click for the Google Books preview.)

If you've already read it, read: The Big Oyster.

In the last ten years,

2010-07-21T13:59:00.000-07:00

I've visited four new provinces, two new states, and two new countries.

I've jumped off of a cliff.

I've lain on my roof and watched shooting stars.

I've conquered my terror of public speaking, mostly.

I've swum across a river.

I've flown across an ocean.

I've eaten breakfast for all three meals of one day.

I've danced in a parade.

I've watched a baby fall asleep in my arms.

I've watched my big brother turn 20. Now it's my turn.

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord God our Father.

Variations on the Canon by George Winston

2010-07-16T14:03:00.000-07:00

from the album December.

incorruptible

2010-07-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

The body is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
(1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 53)

Dr Wilson gave us the creeps one day in science when he pointed out that when you look at someone, or yourself, every cell that you see is dead. Your cells are layered: the top rows serve as an expendable cushion so that you don't shred yourself raw when you get dressed in the morning. Dead cells rub off, and beneath the surface, another row rises to replace them.

It's shocking how dead we all are.

I've heard the mortal and immortal bodies compared to a seed and a flower. Seeds are great; flowers are greater. Given a knobbly brown bulb, white lilies and green leaves may come as a bit of a surprise. But when that which is perfect has come, that which is in part will be done away. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face, with faces that will never die.

Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory.

One day, we will be shockingly alive.

priority check

2010-07-01T22:06:00.000-07:00

How often do you check yourself in the mirror?
How often do you check your conscience?

How much time do you spend checking your email?
How much time do you spend reading your Bible?

How many times a day do you complain about your problems?
How many times do you pray about them?

My life is definitely imbalanced.

How many Christians have read a self-help book cover to cover, but can't remember the last time they read through the Bible?
If it's important enough to ask our friends for advice, why aren't we asking God?

on the crucifixion

2010-06-23T21:32:00.000-07:00

from "The Strangest Story in the World," G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man. My emotions on reading GKC tend to be mixed, but this bit left me without doubt: I love it.

"There were solitudes beyond where none shall follow. There were secrets in the inmost and invisible part of that drama that have no symbol in speech, or in any severance of man from men. Nor is it easy for any words less stark and single-minded than those of the naked narrative even to hint at the horror and exaltation that lifted itself above the hill. Endless expositions have not come to the end of it, or even to the beginning. And if there be any sound that can produce a silence, we may surely be silent about the end and the extremity; when a cry was driven out of that darkness in words dreadfully distinct and dreadfully unintelligible, which man shall never understand in all the eternity they have purchased for him; and for one annihilating instant an abyss that is not for our thoughts had opened even in the infinity of the absolute; and God had been forsaken of God.
[...]
"On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but of the dawn."

summer reading #2*

2010-06-16T22:39:00.000-07:00

*didn't mention this the first time: my project this summer is to read (at least on average) 1,000 pages a week, all books I've never read before.

G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man: A foray through human history filled with the insights and tangents that make Chesterton Chesterton.

Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan, The Strain: Some say this book was made for the screen, but I don`t think so; the action is snappy and the visuals are electric, but I can`t see a movie pulling off the character development or fitting in the side plots. Plus, some things are more sinister when left to our imaginations.

Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters: Sure, it's huge, but it's also the perfect accompaniment for a long day in the car. I turned over the 649th and final page with a happy sigh (or something) just as we turned the corner to home.

Russell Martin, Beethoven's Hair: The subtitle says it all: "An extraordinary historical odyssey and a scientific mystery solved."

Edith Nesbit, The Magic World: A pleasant compendium of bite-sized stories. I would have loved this as a kid; I`ll settle for loving it now.

Lewis Thomas, The Fragile Species: Broad, meditative, and delightful. A lot of the chapters overlap here and there (due to being written separately), but it makes for a cohesive whole rather than a sense of redundance.

Connie Willis, Passage: This is the first book in a long time to keep me up well into the night, reading so hard the pages smoke. A unique, perfectly-paced novel... I have a beef or two with the ending, but it worked so well I couldn't actually be disappointed.

Books: 7
Pages: 2655 (I'm 350 pages behind! Ack!)
If you read one, read: Passage.

Small Talk

2010-06-08T22:18:00.001-07:00

Consider the following exchange:
You: "Hey, how's it going?"
Them: "Not bad, how about you?"
You: "Oh, pretty good."
[awkward silence]

Do you have this conversation with
a) your roommate,
b) someone you just met, or
c) someone you know, but not well?
If I'm any judge of the human condition, the answer is generally C: the person you know, but not well, or at least not well enough to have anything to talk about with. Funny how that works, ain't it?
I went to a wedding last weekend. (It was wonderful.) At the reception, I sat next to someone who knew literally no one there except the bride and maid of honor, who were both otherwise occupied, so the duty of conversation-making was left in my hands. And I was fine with that. I love talking to strangers because there's no shortage of topics available: I was able to ask about her job, her school, her family, and so on, all as part of a perfectly natural getting-to-know-each-other conversation.
Now, think of someone you've known for at least a year but never really gotten to know, and imagine plunking yourself down next to them and having that same conversation. Awkward. For reason, the length of time I've known someone and the ease with which I get to know them often wind up inversely, not directly, proportional.
It's human instinct to revert to topics where we already know at least a little bit about the other person, hence the number of homework-related conversations that go on at NSA every day of the school year. I may not know how many siblings you have or what your favorite movie is, but I do know that we both have the same massive reading assignment due this week. If you don't go to NSA, I might have to resort to that final frontier of conversations desperate for adventure: the weather. Topics like these are where small talk goes to die.
You: "So... how's that Doctrine of the Christian Life going?"
Them: "Dude, I still have to read 600 pages tonight."
You: "That sucks."
[awkwad silence, reprise]
Back during the school year, my roommate caught my attention by saying something to the effect that you know you had a good time at someone's house when you didn't just sit around talking about school. I think that's the hallmark of friendship, or at least friendship in the making: knowing the other person well enough to have something unique to talk to them about.
In fact, this argument proves its own point, since by setting out to defend small talk, I'm making indirect small talk with a friend who recently commented on how much they dislike small talk in the first place. If we weren't friends, it would just be awkward.

"Remember"

2010-06-04T20:31:00.000-07:00

My favorite poem, and part of the reason this blog is called what it is.

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the distant land,
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning, stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand,
It will be late to counsel then, or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while,
And afterward remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget, and smile,
Than that you should remember, and be sad.

- Christina Rosetti

Summer reading #1

2010-05-31T16:11:00.000-07:00

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death and Technopoly: Well-written and thought-provoking, not to mention tailor-made for a dystopia junkie like yours truly.

Roald Dahl, Boy and (not pictured) Going Solo: Roald Dahl's life was awesome. If you don't like reading biography, start now.

George Macdonald, The Complete Fairy Tales: This is the stuff I grew up on... no wonder I was such a weird child. Some old favorites, plus some stuff I hadn't read before: perfect for reading on a rainy night with a stack of Oreos.

Diana Wynne Jones, House of Many Ways: Sequel to Howl's Moving Castle (one of my favorite books). Not quite as much fun, imho, as the other not-quite-as-directly-related sequel, Castle in the Air, but still loads of fun.

Daphne du Maurier, Mary Anne: A pleasantly embellished account of the tempestuous life of Mary Anne Clarke, an early-1800's courtesan who was also du Maurier's great-great-grandmother.

Arthur Plotnik, Spunk and Bite: So good. And if Plotnik knew I used that phrase after reading his book, he'd probably hit me over the head with it.

Peter Leithart, Deep Comedy: Deep. I can't wait to take Dr Leithart's class.

Smith/Kiger, Poplorica: Perky and informative, like reading a collection of history presentations... albeit a little more scandalous.

Books: 10
Pages: 2412
If you read one, read: Going Solo.

capybara

2010-05-23T18:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I took Chloe to the zoo as an 8-months-late birthday celebration, and discovered a new passion: the capybara. If I can find this picture in a resolution larger than the length of my ring finger, I will put it on the wall of my apartment.

* Amendment: I found it for sale, but it also needs to cost less than I spend on groceries in a week.

1965-1966

2010-05-17T16:33:00.001-07:00

Last summer's soundtrack was Rubber Soul.

This summer's will be Revolver. I can tell already.

raisins

2010-05-07T22:09:00.001-07:00

A raisin may be a humiliated grape, but a chocolate-covered raisin is a humiliated grape that is sown in dishonor and raised in glory. Happy Ascension Day in advance.

This year has been exciting, exhilarating, exhausting, extraordinary. May a blessed finals week be upon you all.

cherry blossoms

2010-05-01T12:13:00.001-07:00

Thirteen years ago this summer, we moved into a new house in a new neighborhood. Unlike our old house, #7 in a row of 17 townhouses squashed together like so many gummy bears in the bulk bin, this new house abounded with yard space. We went to work filling it with trees: two apple trees, which were "Dad's trees," a magnolia for Mom, a spruce picked out by Fraser, and my tree, a Japanese maple of the cute 4-foot-high variety. My first choice would have been an ornamental cherry tree, but for some reason, that wasn't going to work. I contented myself with wandering down the rows of young trees at the nursery, drinking in their scent and sneezing when the pollen became too much for my nose to handle.
The cemetery and surrounding grounds at the Spalding mission took me back there, to when I was a seven-year-old defining her ideal adult life in terms of the trees and plants that would grow around her house. The dream hasn't changed.

The Portrait of a Lady

2010-04-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

Henry James was an author I'd never read before, and I enjoyed him thoroughly. Some favorite bits:

[Describing an invalid]: "Living as he now lived was like reading a good book in a poor translation--a meager entertainment for a young man who felt he might have been an excellent linguist." - 94
(I just can't get over this simile. It haunts me.)

"Mrs Touchett, not having cultivated relations with her husband's neighbors, was not warranted in expecting visits from them. She had, however, a peculiar taste; she liked to receive cards. For what is usually called social intercourse she had very little relish; but nothing pleased her more than to find her hall-table whitened with symbolic morsels of white pasteboard." - 112

[One character's opinion]: "The opera's very bad; the women look like laundresses and sing like peacocks." - 349

1984

2010-04-11T17:18:00.000-07:00

[I know, all I do these days is quote books, but this passage has been on my mind, especially in relation to Mr Schlect's discussions of the nature of history.]

from chapter 1, as Winston is beginning his first diary entry:
For whom, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he writing this diary? For the future, for the unborn. [...] For the first time the magnitude of what he had undertaken came home to him. How could you communicate with the future? It was of its nature impossible. Either the future would resemble the present, in which case it would not listen to him: or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless.

Memory

2010-03-30T20:29:00.000-07:00

from chapter 4, "A Magic Kingdom," in Naturalist by Edwin O. Wilson.

Consider how long-term memory works. With each changing movement, the mind scans a vast landscape of jumbled schemata, searching for the one or two details upon which the decisive reaction will be based. The mind with a search image is like a barracuda. The large predatory fish pays scant attention to the rocks, pilings, and vast array of organisms living among them. It waits instead for a glint of silver that betrays the twisting body of a smaller fish. It locks on this signal, ruches forward, and seizes the prey in its powerful jaws. Its singlemindedness is why swimmers are advised not to wear shiny bracelets or wristwatches in barracuda waters.

The human mind moving in a sea of detail is compelled like a questing animal to orient by a relatively few decisive configurations. There is an optimum number of such signals. Too few, and the person becomes obsessive-compulsive; too many, and he turns schizophrenic. Configurations with the greatest emotional impact are stored first and persist longer. Those that give the greatest pleasure are sought on later occasions. The process is strongest in children, and to some extent it programs the trajectory of their lives. Eventually they will weave the decisive images into a narrative by which they explain to themselves and others the meaning of what has happened to them. As the Talmud says, we see things not as they are, but as we are.

my favorite garbage can

2010-03-20T22:10:00.001-07:00

is right in front of the 1912 Center, complete with an awesome ashtray.

advertising

2010-03-12T22:01:00.001-08:00

This disturbed me badly, but I'm kind of curious what the possible outcomes of the quiz might be. "You smell like heroin, but not Edward's personal brand. Close but no cigar." Or, "Slightly floral, like... freesia. Check the corners of your bedroom before going to sleep."

But this is the real winner. I'm sorry, Botticelli.

Adventures on a cookie sheet

2010-02-28T15:56:00.000-08:00

Thai Chicken Pizza

Spicy, savory, and sweet. Starting with your crust, layer on in this order:
~2 tbsp. each crunchy peanut butter (warmed up so it spreads nicely) and thai chili paste
- Diced cooked chicken (I use a can of the stuff from Costco)
~1 cup grated carrot
~2 tsp. dried cilantro
~2 cups shredded mozza
~1 cup chopped broccoli florets
Bake. For my oven this meant 20 minutes at 450.

Spinach Alfredo Pizza

Serious comfort food, loosely based on a recipe from pizzamaniac.com. Make your alfredo sauce:
1-1/2 cups milk
3/4 cup Parmesan cheese (grated/crumbled)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
3 cloves minced garlic (I'm a big fan of the stuff in a jar)
1 tsp. dried rosemary
2 or 3 handfuls of fresh spinach, chopped (or more; I kept adding and adding)
Bring the milk to a boil (I used my double boiler to avoid tragic accidents), then let it simmer while you add the rest; remove from heat and let it stand to thicken. Spread the alfredo sauce onto your crust and add the rest:
-Sliced tomatoes/mushrooms*
-Diced chicken (again, I used the canned, but the original recipe says to sliver and saute it with garlic.)
~2 cups shredded pepper jack cheese

*I didn't have tomatoes or mushrooms around when I made this, but if I had, they'd have been involved.
** To tell you the truth, I don't measure unless I have to, so aside from the alfredo sauce, all these are approximated.

Goodbye, February. It's been fun.

waiting for the bus

2010-02-22T15:43:00.000-08:00

Scene: Friendship Square. Claire and a strange-looking 30ish short man await the coming of the West Bus at 2:55.

Short man: Nice skirt.
Claire: Uh, thanks.
[Awkward silence. The bus is a block away, so Claire decides 30 seconds of polite small talk won't hurt anyone.]
Claire: Yeah, it's kinda tough finding skirts when you're a six-foot-tall woman.
Short man: Oh I know. I have some friends who are drag queens who wear a size 16 mens, so they have a really hard time finding shoes.
Claire [wondering how that train of thought happened]: Well, I don't have any problems there, at least. I'm an 8.
Short man: Really! Even I'm bigger than that.
Claire [glad to have changed the subject]: Yeah, sometimes I wonder how I stay standing.
Short man: Haha. I wish I was six feet tall.
Claire [wondering if the bus could be any slower]: It has its ups and downs.
Short man: Well, I'm 5'5'', and it's tough going to drag shows, because you get these drag queens who are 6'5'' and then they put on six inch heels and they're a foot and a half taller than me.
Claire: Oh, I'm sorry.
[The bus arrives and Claire flees to safety.]

"I love you."

2010-02-14T21:14:00.000-08:00

Last week at CRF, Pastor Wilson emphasized the fact that love is active and selfless; for the average teenagers making out at the movies, "I love you" is a statement on par with that of a three-year-old exclaiming "I love ice cream." Loving someone is not about feeling happy because of them; it's being filled with and acting upon a desire to give yourself up for them.

Now, apply this to your average teenage (or adult) breakup, where one person says to the other: "I just don't feel that way about you anymore." Once upon a time, someone somewhere got the idea that the fact that people and emotions change is a bad thing and a sign from on high that the relationship is worn out and due for replacement. Listen to that statement again. "I don't feel that way about you anymore." In other words, "I've been eating this kind of ice cream for a while now, and I'm tired of it. You aren't making me as happy as I want to be."

When I was 10 or so, I was watching TV with my mom. I forget what the show was. 20-Something Girl confessed her feelings for 20-Something Guy, who responded, "You're my friend. I love you, but I'm not in love with you." My mom snorted, and my romantic sensibilities were outraged. Surely, being in love with someone is something completely different from all other emotions? But hindsight, as usual, is clearer. What 20-Something Guy is saying is, "You make me happy, but not that happy." Even as a friend, love would have a better response than that. All he cares about is finding himself some really good ice cream.

This is why wedding vows are so important. Husband and wife vow to love one another in sickness and health, sorrow and joy, poverty and wealth, for the rest of their lives, not to doodle hearts around each others' names on the nearest piece of paper. Love is hard work. Listen to the conditions it happens in: we are called to love the other when they are sick and needy and smelly; we are called to love them when we are poor and hungry and tired and irritable; we're called to love them in sorrow, when we lose jobs and friends and parents and children and don't know how to go on. How many marriages have you heard of that ended "because of" some tragedy or other? Too many. But these are the times when a husband and wife who genuinely know how to love each other will be the ones most able and most obligated to hold each other up.

So, to return to Pastor Wilson's message, don't say "I love you" lightly. It's a promise about how you intend to spend the rest of your life. People talk about love as if it's something you start out with a lot of and slowly use up over the course of time, but it's the opposite that's true. Love is made out of actions, and as we love someone day in and day out, year after year, that love is going to grow. It's inevitable.

I guess this means I support Valentine's Day. In a sea of romance movies about finding your new favorite ice cream flavor, I think Valentine's Day is one of the last vestiges of genuine love that our culture endorses: to go out of your way to show your love for someone, to write them cards, to give them gifts, to sit down with them for dinner, to give up your time and your money and yourself.

From the Vault

2010-02-09T21:16:00.001-08:00

(Poznań, Poland)

(Legnica, Poland)

On Time

2010-02-03T18:36:00.000-08:00

Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race;
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace;
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross;
So little is our loss,
So little is thy gain.
For when, as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd
And last of all thy greedy self consumed,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss,
With an individual kiss;
And Joy shall overtake us, as a flood,
When every thing that is sincerely good,
And perfectly divine,
With truth, and peace, and love, shall ever shine,
About the supreme throne
Of Him, to whose happy-making sight, alone,
When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb,
Then all this earthly grossness quit,
Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit,
Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time.

- John Milton

filling the empty walls

2010-01-31T08:30:00.001-08:00

{Alphonse Mucha}

{Picasso}

{Katsushika Hokusai}

the umbrella novel

2010-01-27T15:30:00.000-08:00

_{[first paragraph]}
Where I grew up, summer began with the first week of May and ended with the first week of October, a hundred and fifty days of picnics and swimming and beestings. The sun came down, the grass came up, and between them, the wind fit sideways like a baseball player sliding into home. On wet days, we watched the wind carrying the rain on its back, but for most of the summer we only felt it, taking the edge off of the sunshine, spreading the smell of the apple trees that clustered behind our house, and tugging at the edges of the bright yellow umbrella over our heads as we ate dinner outdoors. My dad always said the umbrella was trying to go home, but we were old enough by then to know it was just another story, and old enough that when the war started, my brother Patrick was one of the first to go.

_{[last paragraph]}
I left my umbrella to dry on the front porch and went up to Patrick's room. He wasn't there. He would never be there. The simple reality of it hurt more than having the bullet in my arm or watching dirt fall by shovelfuls into an empty grave. I wondered how long it would still be "his" room, when it would change from Patrick's room to Patrick's old room, and when we would stop saying his name altogether. I wondered whose the room would become when my parents left for the last time.

He was gone. And I, I was finally home.

The chinup bar was still there. I gripped it with both hands and hung on tight, lifting myself slowly. Someday, this war would end, and I would fly again. But not yet.

Follow your heart.

2010-01-09T20:46:00.000-08:00

One of the occupational hazards of nannyhood: Barbie movies. It's been a few years, so their details are fading blissfully into the hazy reaches of forgetfulness, but they have left me with a deep and lasting aversion to a number of the popular catchphrases that have replaced Christian morals in the media: "Be true to yourself," "Believe in yourself," and most importantly, "Follow your heart," which are spoonfed into our childrens' hungry minds as quick and tasty recipes for happiness. Of course, I knew better. True happiness comes from following God, and in His presence is fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11). The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9).

Tonight, I got a new perspective. Yes, we are sinful; yes, our sinful hearts will lead us astray. But God promises, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26). This is sanctification. This is why David prayed, "Create in me a clean heart, O God" (Psalm 51:10).

Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart." David isn't just saying that if we love God enough, He'll give us whatever we pray for. Rather, He will give us the desires behind the prayers. "Follow your heart" may carry a lot of trite, pop-culture baggage, but on a fundamental level, it's exactly what only Christians are able to do. Only someone who genuinely trusts and serves God is free to follow the desires of their God-given, purified heart. Martin Luther said it himself: "Love God, and do as you please."

How can a young man cleanse his way?
By taking heed according to Your word.
With my whole heart I have sought You;
Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!
Your word I have hidden in my heart,
That I might not sin against You.
~ Psalm 119:9-11

So, here we are.

2009-12-27T23:13:00.000-08:00

A friend was inquiring about how others dealt with writer's block that lasted over six months. My first response was, "Are you kidding?" Sure, assign me something and I'll get back to you, but the real writing muse only sings to me a couple of times a year.

I would agree with some of the other responses to the same question and say that writer's block is the result of too many things in one's head, not too few. White light only seems blank; split it, and you'll see just how many blue days, yellow days, and pink days went into making it. You can't unravel white light by focusing it. White light has to be broken.

So, rather than trying to put the whole world into our heads, we must put our heads into the world. Be not a lens, distilling the truth until it burns; be not a mirror, showing truth that has already been shown. Instead, write as a prism, unfolding old beauty in new ways, opening doors in the familiar, spreading light in colors as of yet unseen.

Neruda says it all.

2009-11-14T07:26:00.001-08:00

If you are not living,
if you, beloved, my love, if you have died,
all the leaves will fall on my breast,
it will rain upon my soul night and day,
the snow will burn my heart,
I shall walk with cold and fire and death and snow,
my feet will want to march to where you are sleeping,
but I shall go on living.

Hippocratic Oath

2009-11-08T19:49:00.000-08:00

"I swear by Apollo the Physician, by Aesculapius, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgement this oath.
To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers and to teach them this art, without fee or indenture; to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and to indentured pupils.
I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and my judgement, but never with a view to injury and wrongdoing.
I will not administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I give a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and holy in both my life and my art.
I will not use the knife on sufferers from stone, but I will give place to such as are craftsmen in this art.
Into whatsoever houses I enter I will endeavour to help the sick and I will abstain from all intentional wrongdoing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman whether bond or free.
And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, or in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad I will never divulge it, holding such things to be as secrets which are holy.
If I carry out this oath and break it not, may I gain forever a good reputation among all men for my life and my art; but if I transgress it, may the opposite be my portion.”

(Oh, so that's why they don't have doctors swear to it anymore.)

Monochrome, except for one spot:

2009-10-15T22:42:00.001-07:00

a funky feature I just discovered on my camera. Unfortunately, I don't think the size of the area is adjustable.

(since the wall was gray to begin with, this worked out nicely.)

Pickles: just one small part of an amply celebrated Thanksgiving.

My Prime Minister is cooler than your Prime Minister!

2009-10-07T08:51:00.000-07:00

Sunrise, Sunset

2009-10-04T00:34:00.001-07:00

Swiftly flow the years; one season following another, laden with happiness and tears.

The Nanny State

2009-09-28T17:51:00.000-07:00

"We have forgotten that the Gospel ethic demands feeding the poor: it is silent about the business of turning the poor into capitalists so that they can care for themselves and release us from the Gospel burden."

Read the whole awesome article here.

County Fair

2009-09-23T23:49:00.000-07:00

Why I'm not big on bending over these days.

2009-09-21T21:16:00.000-07:00

Out on the Callihans' property, whilst attempting to aerially transport myself from one haybale to another, I discovered the texture of the second haybale to be significantly less hospitable than I had initially perceived, and consequently fell about 8 feet to the ground and gave myself a good hard bump. From the feel of it, I bruised my ischium on the left side, but not my coccyx (thank goodness) and also gave my thoracic and lumbar vertebrae a good hard crunch. Thankfully, nothing broken, nothing sprained, just some serious soreness and stiffness, which the last remains of my H1N1 cough are doing their utmost to aggravate. The end.

Giving

2009-09-04T18:08:00.000-07:00

I am a difficult person to shop for; just ask my mother. Not to say that I can't be placated with chocolate and the like, but even when it comes to chocolate, I'm kind of picky. It's my own fault, but that doesn't make it any less depressing.

I'm a difficult person to cheer up; just ask my mother. Not to say I don't grin just imagining Mr Griffith doing the vocab dance, but even on good days, I tend to have an undercurrent that's dragging me down. It's my own fault.

When I was a kid, my parents had a remarkably effective policy regarding "treats" -- i.e. the chocolate bars in the grocery store. I only could only have one as a surprise; it had to be their idea, not mine. Oh, the many times I stood by the cash register, ogling the Kit Kats with bated breath, yearning for the parental go-ahead. Sometimes it came, usually it didn't. When it did come, the surprise was always sweeter than a mere granted request.

Where my parents see outward appearances, God looks at the heart. While my parents will always listen, before a word is on my tongue, He knows it completely. My parents' generosity never fails to leave me speechless, but God's generosity is on a grander scale. He brings me to my knees.

evening at the Ryans'

2009-08-29T23:56:00.000-07:00