olley-olley-oxin-free!

Is that how you spell that? In any case, I've made it safely back to Seabury. I'm sure I'll soon get used to it, and I am excited for Kirsteen to move in, but the room looks different with Kirsteen's stuff on the shelves instead of Rhonda's.

Speaking of shelves, it's now my task to figure out where more books are going to go on my bookshelf. I realize it's a problem that I'm having this dilemma after only one quarter here... eventually the pictures, mugs, and dishes will have to move. But right now I'm not sure where they're going to go. Very nearly all of the shelf space is already used up, and that's with Kirsteen only partly moved in.

my bags are packed, i'm ready to go..

Well, mostly packed, anyway. It'll still take a slight miracle tomorrow morning to get everything in, but I have complete confidence that it will happen. If all goes according to plan, I should be back in Evanston by midafternoon. It's been a lovely visit, but it will be good to be back - back in space that at least approximates being mine, back someplace where I'm not housebound until someone else decides to go out, back out from under my parents' roof.

Saturday or Sunday I'll get a new roommate, which will be exciting, and then Monday it's back to classes. Which will be good also. I like classes.

Holy Innocents

Haven't blogged in a couple of days. Partly this is due to my enormous popularity, which has sucked away enough time that I just haven't been online much. Partly, though, this is because when I've done my blog reading, many of the entries have been about Holy Innocents. Holy Innocents ranks right up with All Saints/All Souls as a Feast Day of Incredibly Inconvenient Timing (on a purely selfish basis, of course). While Holy Innocents has a more specific historical focus than All Saints/All Souls, it usually doesn't take long for the discussion to turn toward modern-day innocents. And regardless of how many other deserving innocents there are to remember in any given year, for me, Holy Innocents is just too close to the anniversary of Emily's memorial service on Dec 27 (and for that matter, Becca's, on I think the 29th). Instead of thinking about Herod and the slaughter of who-knows-how-many young boys (which is itself a horrific story, as Si points out ), or even current events like the tsunami, I think about how a beautiful young woman with a kind heart and a soul that yearned for God was taken from us, shot for no reason. It's compounded somewhat by the fact that the readings for Holy Innocents overlap with the readings from Emily's service, and that particular Revelation passage is hard for me even when it's not Holy Innocents. I mentioned recently how my understanding of the Incarnation was affected when Emily and Julia died; somewhat similarly, my ability to tolerate Holy Innocents has been drastically reduced since Emily's death in particular. I imagine this is something I ought to work on, since this is likely not the last year I'll encounter Holy Innocents, and since my engagement with it will likely have to increase some time. But for now, I'm going to go back to repressing any observance of this particular day.

A Clean Rug is Hard to Find

At least if you live in a Seabury dorm. Anyone who's seen my common room rug will attest to this, and probably it's true of most of the other rugs around. So I was super duper excited tonight to open my email and discover that my new roommate has taken the rug back with her to have it cleaned. Not sure how well it will work - it's entirely possible the rug may disintegrate or spit dirt back in the cleaner's face or something of that nature. But I'm excited that someone's trying, with better cleaning supplies than the ones residing in our suite's bathroom corner.

Not quite as exciting (especially to people who aren't overly joyful about good grammar): AKMA's blog features a post today about writing, and particularly about the active voice, that triggers my memory. My little brother came home last week from his senior year at Allegheny, where he's majoring in theater and minoring in psychology. Within the first twenty-four hours, he announced to me that he had learned something new this term - what "passive voice" means. After eighteen years of living with an English teacher father and a bossy grammar guardian older sister and three years of seeing "passive" scrawled on his papers, he decided to look it up, and discovered the joy of active verbs. Amazed as I was by his timing, I have to admit that the bossy-older-sister/editor parts of me were pretty thrilled about his excitement over how much stronger and bolder active verbs are.

And yes, I know I'm a dork. If you're reading this, you probably knew it already also.

Happy Christmas!

I love Christmas. I wouldn't choose to have it any other way but the way my family celebrates. Final preparations and lots of church on Christmas Eve, then up the next morning to do presents with our immediate family before brunch and presents with my mom's family. Then back home to cook while my dad and brother pick up my dad's mom, more presents with her, then my mom's family comes over for a big dinner with the whole family. Often we'll have games after, though nearly as often one or more groups of the family have other Christmas obligations still to fulfill - such as this year, when many of us hadn't finished presents yet. Then my parents leave to take my grandmother back while my brother and I get the extreme honor and privilege of cleaning up. It's a marvelous day and a half, full of both worship and family.

I do look back with a certain fondness, however, on the days when church was over when the 4 pm pageant was over instead of coming home at 1 am or so, and we were well-rested for Christmas Day when we got up, instead of dragging ourselves out of bed at 8 am after six or seven hours of sleep (which is really not enough for any of us but my dad), and when we were young enough to play with our new toys between brunch and dinner instead of working (as much as I love cooking, after that kind of morning I'm ready for a rest now). Here's hoping my parents get home soon, so they can decide what they want to do with the rest of the turkey and the roasting pan, so we can all go to bed.

I've just heard a car door, so I'll just hope that everyone else had as happy a holiday as I did, and go on about the business of finishing up for the night.

Taters, taters everywhere...

A week or two ago, AKMA said to me that he could think of only one use for potatoes, aside from potato printing. This led to my commitment to recover the directions for making a potato lamp (see previous post). Here, then, are several possible uses for potatoes, other than eating them and stamping with them:

The famous potato lamp

Want a potato menorah?

Power your alarm clock by potato!

Seeking a new culture medium for fungus and bacteria? (scroll down to find the potato part)

Less impressive: a potato groundhog (scroll down on this one also)

I also found directions for making a gun that will shoot potatoes, but this doesn't strike me as warranting a link here.

Yes, if there's one thing I've learned from the Girl Scouts, it's that there's more than one use for everything.

Do you hear what I hear?

That's the flapping of my wings. No, I'm still no angel - apparently I've become a social butterfly. In a city where I still talk to a grand total of one of the high school friends who've stayed local, I've managed to book myself for five (going for six or seven) social engagements in these two weeks, family Christmas things obviously not included.

I've just come back from a great evening of dinner and drinks with Frog and Why?, two marvelous friends from - you guessed it - Girl Scout camp (where else do you make friends with such odd names?). It was especially great to see Why? since she lives in Florida most of the year and I can't go back to camp this summer. It was hard to tell her that tonight, and to listen to the two of them make plans for the summer. I'm going to miss camp lots and lots. However, it's heartwarming to know that I will at least be at core camp in effigy, seated at the ghost seat at the dining table - and that when I come home at the end of the day ready to hear about something other than who died on whose watch that day, I can call in and hear who thought they were going to be eaten by the reeds near the pond drain or who slipped and slid all the way down the rope trail in front of their girls instead.

Just occurred to me that I forgot to ask Why? how to make a potato lamp - but never fear, I SHALL find out again.

Pilgrimage to middle-age

I like it when my parents' friends come over. I like that I'm old enough to sit and participate in the conversation as an adult now, even joining in on the jokes and teasing. I like getting the chance to speak German with Barbara once in a while. I like helping to entertain in what's as close as I get most of the time to my home turf, even if it doesn't much feel like home anymore.

I don't, however, like that my chameleon nature picks up on the fact that I'm hanging out with fifty-ish people and sparks my brain to want to fall asleep at ten o'clock. Inevitably, when my parents' friends are over, I end up feeling ready for bed before they leave, even though I'm normally not in bed until midnight or so. Strange.

yeehaw! dowwwn little doggies!

So today I had my meeting with the bishop. I was nervous going in - but this appears to have been utterly unwarranted. After some initial conversation about my health, I broached the topic of long-term planning and a possible academic future, something I'd never mentioned to him before - and he was completely unfazed by it. He expressed his total support and told me to look into all sorts of different options, even bringing up possibilities such as "it may be that you need to go straight on to doctoral work". Now that I remain utterly unconvinced of, but the idea that with no hesitation he's given me permission to look at so many different options is awesome, and was totally unexpected. I expected to have to sell the idea much more. But no, he just wants me to keep in touch about my thoughts and learnings as I continue trying to discern God's will for my life. I have such a sense of freedom now to search and investigate and listen, without worrying about what my bishop will think of it all. Thanks be to God!

God with us

I was just catching up on Mike's blog while I'm on my parents' computer, since for some reason his blog site won't open right on my own computer, and thinking about the clarity he talks about in the wake of Julia's, and for me Emily's, death. Sitting with Laurie and Rory and Johnny and Mike on Sunday and remembering Julia's life, I realized how much my understanding of the Incarnation has deepened since they died. I realized how I understand that kind of love much more closely now, because I'd still trade places with either of them in a heartbeat. I'd still give anything to have them sitting in the pews in chapel, not just part of the cloud of witnesses, even if it meant me not being there. And I think about that, about how much I still love them both, and it explodes my understanding (to borrow a phrase) - because if I, as frail and sinful and selfish a creature as I am, can love that much, that deeply - then how much more fully and freely and wonderfully must God be able to love us - and then God becoming human, God with us, and going through with it all the way through death makes so much more sense. I'd still trade that knowledge to have them back, even though I'm not sure I'm supposed to feel that way. But there's a glimmer of comfort in the realization that out of these tragedies - really, it usually feels like one big tragedy, all rolled together - that there's been a deepening in my understanding of God, even amidst all the pain and anger.

Afternoon lessons

~A single stocking should not be longer than the leg it's meant to cover.

~Leaving a rubber band in your hair for three years is a bad idea, even if your hair is synthetic. The rubber band will break down, and your hair will still remember that shape when you take the ponytail out.

~Waistband elastics, on the other hand, seem to last anywhere from five to fifteen years before they're shot all to hell.

~Green ribbons cannot just get up and walk away. This doesn't mean they can be found.

~If you have a lot of long hair, it's best to turn your head around backwards when changing your dress.

Yes, it's that time again - I'm changing my American Girl dolls and getting them ready for Christmas. However, because I only do this at best once a season, it's a little dusty back in that trunk, so I'm taking a break to share what I've learned in the last hour.

Hmm. I just realized that I've had my Samantha doll for fifteen years this Christmas. That's a long time. It would also put quite an age gap between Samantha and Kit, who's only been around for three - if all seven of them weren't eternally nine or ten years old.

On the other hand, as necessary as getting seven (miniature and very well behaved) girls ready for Christmas may seem to me, I should probably also empty the dishwasher before my parents come home.

jiggety jig?

I have safely arrived at my parents' house... and it feels less like home than ever. I joked earlier with Rory that I knew I'd become an adult when I was packing for Christmas this year and found it worth my while to pay to do laundry at school so I wouldn't have to bring it home to do it for free, but there's something to it. For one thing, this is the first year that I've really found myself tripping over questions about "are you going home for Christmas?" and heard myself telling people I'm going to my parents' for Christmas. I've been here less than an hour, and while it's lovely to see my parents, and I'm sure the next two weeks will be wonderful, I'm ready to go back to Evanston and my own space. And I miss my friends in St Louis. I hate not knowing where home is.

I've also discovered that sometime in the last couple of weeks, someone decided that a heart monitor should be shipped here. So tomorrow I get to make phone calls and try to find out who made such a silly decision and what I need to do to undo it in such a fashion that I won't be charged for someone else's ineptitude. Because I definitely, definitely never told anyone to do that.

Anyway, the point of this was really just to announce my safe arrival in Cleveland... whatever that means.

chinese food and piercing and guster, oh my!

So if you hadn't guessed from the title, I did go ahead and get my nose pierced. And sorry, Raisin, but I went with the stud. Just not sure my parish would be ok with the hoop. Maybe I'll try it later this year. They had to put it in a slightly different place than last time, because apparently the first piercing was too low. But it's looking like a way healthier piercing than the first one really ever was, so I'm pretty happy about that. The stud is a blue stone set in silver, and a little bigger than the old ones, but not actually large.

Before that, however, we went to a new Chinese restaurant. They had undoubtedly the very best Chinese food I've ever eaten in my life. I intend to file a complaint with the heavenly council about the fact that this restaurant opened this year and not last year. It's delicious food. Delicious, delicious food.

Guster is also delicious, but not delicious food. Delicious music. And now I have a Guster mix cd, to be used for Guster evangelism, and I've been promised a data cd with lots of other Guster music on it, for my own purposes. This is exciting partly because I'd been promised the Guster cd for so very, very long... and now I have it. Still don't have the promised Cake/Guster mix, but you know. Now Ryan's going to burn it for me...

... but quickly, because then we have to leave and go to the airport. And that will be sad. I want to keep my St Louis friends with me, not leave them. I'm sure home will be lovely, but, you know, St Louis is nice too. Especially the friends part.

Well, friends and incredibly good Chinese food....

to pierce or not to pierce?

Hurray for Rory, who brings me homemade cinnamon nut rolls and tea while I sit on the couch reading blogs! I have such marvelous friends.

I've retaken the Dante's Inferno test (which I would link to but Netscape won't let me right now, so if you want it, click on Totoro-Ryan's link), because I couldn't remember some of my results, and I was dubious about others. In fact, I managed to raise my Gluttony score. I'm ok with this, not because I think gluttony is a good thing, but because I couldn't figure out how I was low in gluttony before. I'm now moderate, which is more logical. I'm still inexplicably high on Violent, but I've raised my Purgatory score to Extreme, which is nice, and I'm still low to very low on the others. I'd let you look for yourselves, but again, Netscape's being silly.

I've had a lovely and uneventful couple of days, spending much of it on the silent retreat. The retreat was, as usual, lovely, quiet, productive, and relaxing. I've readjusted to being in St Louis, and it feels like home again. This is of course extremely helpful, since I leave for Cleveland tomorrow.

Must decide today whether to get my nose repierced while I'm here, leave it out for good, or allow my father to get his hopes up and then argue with him about how I'm going to repierce it when I get back to Evanston. I think we'll walk down to Iron Age and ask about prices... I'm frustrated with myself because I forgot to bring my nose ring with me, so I'll have to buy a new one if I want it repierced before I get back to Evanston. I'd like to try a hoop, partly because they're supposed to heal faster, but I'm pretty sure part of the reason I've gotten this far with the nose ring is that it's always been a fairly unobtrusive stud, and I'm not sure about showing up to be a chalice bearer/returning seminarian for the main Christmas Eve service having replaced my little nose stud with a more obvious hoop. Must also find out how much it will cost me - pretty sure it'll be cheaper here than in Evanston.

no more of this...

I hereby move that we abolish the middle of December. Next year, let's just skip Dec 9-14... ok?

prayer books, prayer books, everywhere

Reading through back entries of Wes' blog has reminded me that there's another version of the "pick up the nearest book and type x sentence" out there... well, ok, that Totoro-Ryan and I, ahem, adjusted it last year when it was popular. If I remember correctly, our version reads as follows:

Pick up the nearest Book of Common Prayer.
Start reading it aloud to the nearest person. Keep reading it until the person says something.
Post the first thing they say, along with these instructions.

If I'm not mistaken, this originated out of a whole series of blog entries where the fifth sentence on page 123 was out of the Evening Prayer service (I'm pretty sure that's what's on page 123). And really, everyone posting the same sentence got boring, though the fact of the matter was amusing.

surprise! wireless!

I have wireless in Rory and Ryan's apartment! This is a pleasant surprise to all of us. We don't know where it's coming from, but now I can blog and chat from the living room on my own computer instead of having to go somewhere else on someone else's computer. Huzzah!

Last night was the ECM Christmas party. It was a little surreal, being at a major ECM event like that. I've been back since I stopped being the intern, but I haven't been to a big gathering like that. But it was also a whole lot of fun. I haven't had that kind of unadulterated, nonanxious fun for a long time. I didn't really realize the extent to which there's been an underlying - well, not exactly anxiety... more alertness, maybe? to even the best parts of the last couple of months until last night. It was very relaxing, in addition to being just really great to see people and hang out and carol.

you know it's been a long quarter when...

So I just said goodbye and Merry Christmas to three people in the last five minutes, and three out of three thanked me for not dying this quarter. Not entirely sure how I feel about that. Three out of three also stipulated that I should come back after Christmas break. Is this in doubt for people? I do have every intention of returning on Dec 31, just to clear that up.

However, I know exactly how I feel about being done for the quarter: woot!

And for that matter, I know how I feel about packing and cleaning: ugh. But it has to be done, and today...

...because tomorrow I'll be in St Louis: another woot!

planes, trains, and automobiles...

Huzzah! Thanks to Katy and Emily and Wes (and maybe Andrew?), I now have ways to get from various residences to train stations and airports, and from train stations and airports to various residences over the next few weeks. It's going to be marvelous to see everyone in St Louis, and probably in Cleveland too, though that's not quite as exciting, and very odd to be gone from Seabury for three weeks.

Having nearly finished my Gospel Mission paper, I've set that aside until after my Early Church final is over tomorrow. If anyone knows more about Phrygia than I've been able to find, please fill me in before 1 pm tomorrow. Other than that, I seem to be reasonably well prepared, if the practice quizzes can be trusted - just how well prepared I am, I'll know better by 3 pm tomorrow.

I now have an insurance card to replace the one that will expire on Friday. My father originally said he would send it sometime this week, at which I had to plead that it be here before Friday. When he said "sometime this week", I had a fleeting mental image of AKMA driving my car while they're babysitting it, getting pulled over for something silly like a tail light going out, and trying to explain to a police officer why an Illinois driver was driving a car registered to an Ohio resident who was at the time in St Louis, whose insurance on the car was expired, all while wearing clericals. My father agreed that that would be a bad scene, and has duly caused the current card to appear in my mailbox today. Tomorrow it needs to make its way to the car itself.

And tomorrow by this time, I should be done with my academic work. I do have class Friday morning, but I can handle going to class, especially with a guest lecturer who will not expect us to have done copious amounts of reading beforehand.

a woot!

I'm not quite there yet, but I'm really close to being done... close enough to enjoy the rest of my work. I have the second half of one reflection paper still to write - a paper which is partly about ECM, which is fun. I do love talking about all the impossible and marvelous things about ECM - and I don't half mind my site visit church, so that's not so bad either. Then Thursday I have a church history final, which being church history is also fun to study for. I should qualify that. I have a church history final, which being early church history is fun to study for. (There was a lot of material in my 1000-1700 class in college that I didn't give two hoots about.) And I have to print a church history paper, but that doesn't count. Other than that, I'm done with this quarter - and as much as I've loved my classes this quarter, there's been enough of a crunch to the last month's work that I will actually be relieved to have things simply done.

There's something not quite right, though, about being excited to be done with my classwork partly because then I'll have time to do things like read books I didn't get to finish for my classes this quarter. (Don't worry, I don't care that much about all of the reading that didn't happen - but some of it is just darn interesting. And valuable.) I'm not used to my Christmas reading list being books from the last term - in college it was always "woohoo! I get to read fiction!" Well, and spiritually-oriented Christian texts that I didn't get to read in my Purely Academic And Unbiased Religious Studies Classes - so I guess that's not all that different. The upside to this discovery is that I'm likely in the right place if I get this into my class reading.

I'm also getting very excited about heading to St Louis this weekend. Haven't quite figured out how I'm getting to the train station Saturday morning, but I'll figure something out. I can't wait to see all my wonderful St Louis friends!

Oh, and on the list of exciting things for this week, I have no more heart monitor! That's extremely exciting. No more stickers, no more wires, no more box on my hip that detaches itself from its clip when I sit down. And drugs that might even stop me from fainting. Here's hoping!

I had no idea....

I thought the Saddle Club went away years ago. But no: here they are.

Also, Care Bears should look like cute cuddly cartoon characters from my childhood - not like bizarrely retro looking things pointing out that they came out twenty-some odd years ago. Care Bears should not make me think of album covers and bowling shoes.

apparently i'm inept...

The post previously found here was meant to help dispel, not create, rumors about what my (unnamed, but point taken; I do forget that other people bother to read about people they don't actually know) roommate was and was not up to last night... so to clarify further, the "was" of that was a humorous and innocent if unfortunate experience, and the "was not" includes anything that doesn't fall into the above categories - including such wild and crazy things as the manufacture of Care Bears coloring books, the purchasing of holiday cards, and the swimming of the English Channel.

HOPIE!!!

Hurray! Hopie is here!

Hmm. That's about it right now. The last two days have been reasonably uneventful, if also packed and hard to get work done in.

But that's ok, because I'm excited to have Hopie visiting. It would be very exciting to have her here next year - so Seabury folk should be extra nice to her. :)

That is all.

Once more, without feeling

Trinity College, Cambridge has a lovely choir. But someone needs to tell them that Christmas is a season of joy. Joy implies not singing things like "In dulci jubilo" like funeral marches. They make pretty sounds, but I'm glad "Joy to the World" is not on this cd.
On the topic of music gone wrong, I'd like to take this moment to assert that some songs should not be made into dance remixes. "Tubthumping" is one. "The First Nowell" is indubitably another.

I'm wondering where my roommate is. I know she got to the airport... and her bedroom door is open and the note is gone off of it, so I'm assuming she's been back... but it's 9:30 and she's not here. Hmm. I realized today that I've missed my roommate more than I suspected this week. This is unfortunate, since she leaves for good in two weeks. Boo.
However, I got an email today from my new roommate, who is exactly the person I was hoping for. We met during orientation week and got along really well, and she's an old friend of Jane's, which will be nice, even though most of next term Jane won't be around. I think she's going to be in for a bit of a shock at how small our common room is, however, based on her questions about furniture.

On a totally random note, I think my rubber bands are aging. I took one out today to bind up my Ambrose pages (since there's way too many of them for a big pinchy clip thing), and they seem to be losing their snap.

Cleaning out my ears

The last couple of nights, as I've sat here wrestling with my 1000 word paper (which at 1097 has just been emailed to my peer editor), I've been moved to pray in ways that I haven't been able to very well since moving here. Usually my liturgical music reflection each week is a grind - boring to write and probably to read - but tonight, here's how it opened:

I went back to the chapel tonight to check last week’s ordo and get the appropriate hymnal for my reflection, and as I skimmed through the hymns from last week, I turned to 458, “My song is love unknown”. I’m fairly sure this is the one I had intended to write about anyway, but sitting in the freshly cleaned and greened, empty chapel that night, I knew that was the right hymn. I had helped earlier in the day to oil pews and fix candles to them, so I had seen the chapel decorated, but not like this, alone, at night, bathed in the soft chapel lighting, fragrant with evergreen. At that moment, my song was indeed love unknown, and that in a marvelous way.

This palpable sense of God's love has been absent from my life for awhile - I've been angry at God, confused by God, on good days even sensed God's love in people around me - but not directly like that for a few months at least. Last night as I was reading some treatise or another, being frustrated, something I came across - I wish I could remember what - influenced me just to close my eyes for a few minutes and listen. And I realized, in those few minutes, how much I've been trying to do it all on my own the last couple of months. I don't know whether it's because I've been angry and confused with God much of the time, or what - I haven't really been conscious of it. But I realized that it's not necessarily my job to know what's coming next all the time or why - it's my job to trust. To trust that just as God led me here in the first place, God will continue to lead me where I need to be - whether I understand that or not.

I don't know exactly why I was able to listen like that last night when I haven't been able to the last couple of months, but it was a relief, both to be able to hear God's voice as loving again, and to remember that God is trustworthy and isn't supposed to be comprehensible.

::baby dinosaur noises::

off Heather's blog:

VIOLET You surround yourself with art and music and are constantly driven to express yourself. You often daydream. You prefer honesty in your relationships and belive strongly in your personal morals. Find out your color at Quiz Me!

That looks like an awful lot of text for a pretty small image, but I'm certainly no expert. I will leave it alone. I'm impressed enough that the quiz got me pretty much right on, despite the fact that I'm not sure my actual answers lead to that result - for instance, I didn't pick any of the artsy options. But whatever.

Today's theme: frustration. Both my work and my potatoes decided to thwart me, despite my best efforts. I'm still working a little more tonight, but three days in a row with lots of people and food have left me pretty well exhausted... probably contributing to the frustration today.

Guess what I'm wearing?

I think I've just discovered my superpower: fitting into old clothes. My parents indulged me by sending up the kilt and sash we bought me at Busch Gardens (VA) when I was ten, so I could see whether perchance I might still fit into either of them for the Kirkin o' the Tartans on Tuesday. As it turns out, I've been randomly selected to be the server on Tuesday (something I've never done, but that's a different story), so it's a moot point - which is too bad, because I'm sitting here right now in the very same kilt and sash. I was expecting that the sash might be ok still but the kilt was probably out of the question, considering that at age 10 I was only slightly shorter and at least 30 pounds lighter. But no - in fact, the kilt fits slightly better than the sash, which is, ahem, a little tighter than it was fourteen years ago. Regardless, the fact that I'm sitting here right now in a kilt which I bought at age ten - and after Thanksgiving dinner, at that - delights me incredibly.

In fact, I'm generally delighted right now. If I were an LJ user, somewhere on this page it would tell you "mood: delighted" - but I don't like LJ. In any case, I have had a delightful day, going over to watch the "Macy Day" parade, as Hope and Audrey call it, and cook stuffed pumpkins with Hope and Andrew and Audrey, and then going over to Charlie and Christina's, which was unexpectedly delightful. I'd never met Charlie and Christina and I discovered as we were arriving that there were to be about twice as many people there as I'd expected, something that generally unnerves me, at least with strangers. However, Charlie and Christina were great, things were very relaxed, the unexpected people turned out to include Tripp, who I had met, and Trish, who I hadn't but was happy to (as well as Laura and Chris, who I didn't know about but turned out to be fun folks too). Overall, I had a fantastic time, including getting to talk church history and other stuff with Tripp (even around here, there are few people with whom I can at a moment's notice discuss the ways in which Chrysostom is and is not a psycho).

I also came to the realization that I've been getting into a habit that should probably stop - namely, unplugging my heart monitor, albeit briefly, at various points. I've fallen into the habit, apparently, of unplugging it and putting it down when I'm changing clothes or doing other brief tasks that render the monitor unwieldy, and then plugging it back in and going on. Today I was doing this after dinner, and since I was feeling rather unsteady at the time, actually realized that perhaps this wasn't the brightest idea I'd ever had, and that if I were to pass out on my way back to the living room (something that felt entirely possible at the time), the recording would not in fact have a good three minute scan from before the button was pressed. So I will dutifully return to leaving it plugged in at all times (except when wearing it would cause electrical shock), even if it's inconvenient. And no, I did not actually pass out tonight. I gracefully paid no attention to the conversation for a good while and just sat, and then returned to normal conversation skills a bit later. Hurray for remaining conscious!

And to return to the delight, I have a package to continue opening, one that contains all my Christmas cards/decorations/etc. - including an Advent present from my parents, which I have not yet opened. I'm ignoring the fact that on November 25, I'm opening a present with Christmas paper - though actually, I guess it's just polar bears and snowflakes, so that's ok.

Here's hoping everyone reading this had as lovely a Thanksgiving as I did!

Grr.

I am finding it extremely difficult to be as productive as I'd like this week. It's much easier to do lots and lots of work while other people at least have work to do also. Getting lots and lots of work done when my neighbors are hanging out is harder. Case in point: Today I was supposed to get CPE applications sent out and go to the library before lunch. I got most of the applications out (all but the St Louis one) before lunch (only because I didn't go to lunch until I mailed them). After lunch I was heading into town to go to the bank and then the library and Debra and Laurel kidnapped me and took me with them to lunch. I finally got back from the library in the middle of the afternoon, which meant that the reading I was supposed to have done last night, when Hope and Andrew came over with a movie, and finished this morning, got finished this afternoon...

I'm actually still doing ok on my schedule so far -less than half a day behind - but I'm foreseeing a lot of cooking and socializing in the next three days, and getting my paper written in time to do any other work this week will be a challenge. Hrmph. If only I didn't so enjoy other people's company...

On the topic of other people's company - Marisa: I will not, as you may have surmised from the above, be home for Thanksgiving; however I will be home for a while over Christmas also, and we should defninitely get together.

now returning to my regularly scheduled programming...

various and sundry

1. Emily: if you haven't already gathered from the picture on AKMA's blog, I was (happily) an Augustinian.

2. I am slowly getting used to my blog circles overlapping. The purple area is steadily getting bigger... today a St Louis friend was pointing out things to me on a Seabury blog; yesterday a Seabury friend asked me if I'd seen the rant on an Ohio blog... I appreciate that my various friends take a passing interest in each other, however, even if it puzzles me slightly.

3. We beat the school up north today. For those of you who are Seabury bloggers rather than good Ohio stock, that's the Ohio State-Michigan game, not the Lavabo Bowl. I really ought to be more excited than this, especially considering the odds of this happening this year, but I'm just kind of generally pleased with it. Oh well.

4. My iTunes apparently likes "Laramie" a lot. It plays it on random roughly twice as often as the average song. My theory is that my brother has put a spell on it (he's auditioning for, and will almost certainly soon be cast in, Laramie Project).

5. I've been pondering today how someone who insists as strongly as I do on the life value of her 24 years can find so very little to write about them in a "reasonably full account" of her life. Also why on earth anyone would create an application that asks for a reasonably full account of someone's life and not give a recommended length.

6. I've been a Girl Scout for a really long time now. I had a moment of panic that I was going to hit 20 years in less than a year, but no, it's only been about 18 1/2. This still feels like a really long time for me to be able to say I've been involved in some particular organization of my own accord.

I think that's it for now. Tomorrow I get to finish off my reasonably full account. Woot.

victorrrrious!

Over this week, at least. While I still have plenty of work left, I actually have some time to do it in now. Enough that I just spent the last two plus hours watching a movie with a glass of wine. It was glorious. Admittedly, I still consider "it's hollywood" to be poor justification for the very end of Ocean's Eleven - but it was a fun movie, and better than I expected. And really, the beautiful people would have made it worthwhile even if it hadn't been. I'm happy.

No time-turners available this week...

However, I have been given a number of grace notes, such that I can do things like breathe and think again. That being the case, I realized today that I have not-quite-excusably forgotten several important birthdays in the last few days. So:

HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY, ANDREW, KRISTIAN, and MIKE!!!

Still here

But if anyone's got a spare time-turner in their back pocket or on their mantel or whatnot, please, please let me know. Probably won't be blogging much this week... but (if I have any say in the matter) it won't be due to hospital visits, just to extreme levels of work (due partly to the recent hospital visits).

In other news:

The Very Most Exciting Thing To Happen In a Long, Long Time

Way too much excitement for a Wednesday morning... but it couldn't happen to two better people. I am beyond happy for them.

Ryan W, meet Ryan W.

In lieu of posting your last names on the big bad internet, and rather than calling you "girl-Ryan" and "boy-Ryan", which makes it sounds like you're baby sweaters or tulips or giraffes or something, you shall henceforth be galleried by your blogs. So Totoro-Ryan, meet Everyday-Ryan. Heck, for that matter, everyone meet Totoro-Ryan and Everyday-Ryan. They're swell.

Guilty as charged

Jane has expressed some dissatisfaction with the lack of Seabury blogs in my peanut gallery, and has most graciously added me to her blogroll, so I will now commence with an exciting new block of additions. For the record, those who have left me comments here at one point or another get to be listed first (well, Jane gets to be first, since this is her doing), then other Seabury blogs I read regularly. If you don't see yours (after giving me a few minutes to get them up), it's probably because I don't know about it, so leave me a comment and I'll add you in.
off to edit the peanut gallery now! huzzah!

Can I say this?

Hesitant as I am to tempt fate, today has been a reasonably average day. This in itself is almost exciting. But I'm ok with "discovered ichat" being at the top of my list of "things that happened today".

In fairness, there were other things that happened today. Good things, even, like finishing my worship review draft and having a good lunch with a potential spiritual director and a good chat with Jane. However, on pure fun, setting up ichat definitely wins. Though getting my post title color changed is up there too (thanks wes!)

I'm going to end this entry while I'm still on that note.

Internet! Huzzah!

Yes, it's true... I'm actually blogging from my common room. How has this happened, you ask? Yesterday, I went ahead and bought an iBook. It's glorious. This should mark my return to AIM shortly as well.

I clicked through to the "What Religion Are You?" quiz on Nicole's blog. First of all, it should be called "What form of Christianity, Satanism, or atheism are you, from a very slanted basis?" Really, a quiz titled "What Religion Are You?" should have options like Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. And the author needs to learn that whom is never used in the nominative. Options like "God whom created heaven and earth" just shouldn't exist.
That said, their other mistake was in giving the choice "something that hasn't been mentioned here" for nearly every question. Give me that option, and most of the time I'll take it rather than try to squeeze into the narrow options presented. As a result, the quiz couldn't classify me. I'm ok with that, especially on a quiz that fails to give any Trinitarian option for "who is God?" but is trying to tell you what kind of Christian you are. I'm curious to know what answer they considered the "true Christian" answer for any of those - whatever they were, I didn't pick any of them. I'm apparently 1 part fundamentalist, 2 parts holy roller, 1 part average Christian, and 6 parts WTF, mate? (no, that's not their category)

To this morning's mysterious caller

Thanks for your call - I'm sure I'm very excited to hear from you... but... who are you?

For the rest of the world: Yes, I'm still alive. Yes, I'm once more back at Seabury. No, they still couldn't tell me what's going on.

They have, however, ruled out major problems with my brain and heart. Actually, we've ruled out brain issues altogether, which I know will surprise anyone who's known me for any length of time. ;) In a few minutes, I'll go get a nifty pager-sized heart monitor, which I will wear for who knows how long. Not long after, I'll get to have more doctor's appts and a tilt test. (aren't I lucky?) I do not get to drive, swim, do heavy exercise, or do anything else during which passing out might result in harm to myself or others, at least until the doctors are smarter. Well, more conclusive. I'm sure they're very smart.

I'll probably write more later - but that's the big news from the last 48 hours. Now I have to go get that nifty monitor.

First things first...

Yes, I'm alive. Yes, I'm back at Seabury. No, they couldn't tell me what's going on.

Now: I started this Sunday and got a phone call in the middle of it, and I'm probably going to have to stop and use the edit function to come back to this, but I like these things and I want to do it, even if I'm not on LJ. Marisa's LJ has tempted me.

13 random things you like
1. not being in the hospital
2. visitors
3. phone calls, usually
4. pink
5. potatoes
6. well, the Indigo Girls, obviously
7. classes (don't hit me, please)
8. good children's movies
9. friends
10. red wine
11. books
12. sleep
13. dance

12 movies (just 12 random good ones, from what I gather)
1. Kissing Jessica Stein
2. Muppet Christmas Carol
3. Now & Then
4. Mary Poppins
5. Sleeping Beauty
6. Sound of Music
7. Dead Poet's Society
8. Hook
9. Lion King
10. Miracle on 34th Street
11. Boys on the Side
12. Backbeat

11 good bands or singers (first 11 that come to mind)
1. Indigo Girls (duh)
2. Catie Curtis
3. U2 (go ahead, Mike, be proud)
4. Dar Williams
5. Beatles
6. Sarah McLachlan
7. Simon & Garfunkel
8. Peter, Paul & Mary
9. Guster (ok, R&R, your turn)
10. Tracy Chapman
11. BNL

10 things about you... physically (odd, but ok)
1. short
2. superflexible ankles
3. long thumbnails (just for you, Ryan)
4. blue eyes
5. my hips pop a lot (another one for you, Ryan)
6. nose stud
7. three holes in my ears (not counting the ones I hear out of)
8. really tiny toenails
9. large rib cage
10. tight shoulders

9 great books
1. A Swiftly Tilting Planet (representing the entire corpus of Madeleine L'Engle's work)
2. Little Women - L.M. Alcott
3. Iconostasis - Pavel Florensky
4. Old Turtle - I have no idea who wrote this... I'm sure my mother knows
5. Lord of the Rings (i refuse to count this as more than one)
6. Narnia series (ditto Lord of the Rings)
7. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
8. Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton (did I get that right?)
9. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson

8 favorite drinks
1. water
2. tea
3. champagne
4. red wine
5. beer
6. ginger ale
7. Dr. Pepper
8. starbucks' caramel macchiato

7 things you wear daily - except I think that's a dumb category, and I'm changing it... um... let's do... 7 places you love
1. my camp
2. New England
3. London
4. Isle of Skye
5. Scottish Highlands in general
6. St Louis (as long as I'm not driving)
7. St David's, Wales

6 things that annoy you (another useless category, but we'll go with it)
1. being in the hospital
2. people who don't use their turn signal but expect you to know they're turning
3. taking a party line on an issue without thinking it through
4. bad vegetarian food
5. no vegetarian food
6. stupidity (my own as well as others')

5 things you touch every day
1. a computer
2. the sink
3. the scarf on my dresser that keeps slipping into my top drawer
4. my baby blanket
5. my rings

4 shows you watch (assuming there's no rules about how often...only West Wing gets any regularity)
1. West Wing
2. What Not to Wear
3. Today Show
4. Trading Spaces

3 celebrities you have a crush on (wow, that's tough)
1. Keira Knightley
2. Julia Roberts
3. Viggo Mortenson, but only, only as Aragorn

2 people on LJ you have kissed
ok, I honestly can't think of a one, even peck-wise... neither can I think of any blogger users I've kissed. sorry. I'm utterly boring. If I've kissed you on the head or something and forgotten, please let me know.

1 letter you like (again, odd, but ok)
1. L

ok, now I really need to go attack that rust...

hold my head, love, i'm sick tonight
find the open hole and press your fingers there with all your might
until the last ounce of my spirit bleeds onto the pristene sheets...

To talk or not to talk?

So I forgot when I typed my last post that I had given the camp staff my blog address. Sorry about that.

Today's pondering: I can't decide whether I talk too much, enough, or too little in class. Generally I feel like I talk a lot, probably too much, so I try to keep my mouth shut and listen to other people, but a couple of comments from classmates recently have made me wonder. I also feel like most of the time the things I do end up saying should really just have stayed in my head. If any of you have any opinions on this, feel free to share, even though I don't think anyone reads this who has had a class with me in the last - oh, five years at least. (If there are any Seabury lurkers who have discovered my blog, speak up!)

And Rory, I love you too.

edited to say: dude! my blog looks normal again! (now if I could only remember/figure out how to change the post title color so it doesn't look like puke...)

What just happened?

I still haven't absorbed that the Red Sox have actually won the World Series. It sounds really fantastically great, but I haven't realized yet that it's true, I don't think. Exciting nonetheless. (must remember not to watch baseball tonight...)

In other great things happening in my life: my Genesis 22 paper is done. Not the best paper I've ever written (and not just because of the World Series), but it's done, and done is better than good. Especially when it means I can stop thinking about Genesis 22, something I'm not fond of doing. You know, child sacrifice and all.

Also, I've discovered recently that an iBook doesn't cost nearly as much as I thought it did. This is both marvelous and dangerous news, considering that I really, really want a Mac. I'm still working out the justification for buying a new computer, even knowing now that I could actually afford it now, when my other one is only three+ years old, and while it's not a Mac, and doesn't love me, it does let me write papers and play music on it. Being surrounded by Mac-users, I have more help than is probably good for me in trying to justify this. Having posted this here, I'm sure Rory will jump in to help soon as well.

As an update to my accelerated pondering from the last post, I'm thinking I'm likely to end up here in Chicago next summer. Not entirely sure about that... definitely haven't told my parents I'm not coming home. I don't think they'll mind. The camp staff will be harder to tell - plus giving up living under my parents' roof is a lot easier than giving up camp.

A pox upon ATLA

Apparently, all computers everywhere must hate me, and I just didn't get the memo. Not only does my own laptop not access the wifi (still have to call d-link about that), but ATLA has been changed since I last used it (at least I have the consolation of knowing Andrew has the same problem), such that I can't make it do the things it used to, and the computer I was using earlier to play with ATLA suddenly stopped acknowledging the 'n' key, so I had to email my adviser sounding like my computer had a cold (o, I ca't fid aythig olie about this topic, am I icompetet?).

I dislike this immensely and declare that they should all stop torturing me.

It is possible, I suppose, that it's only PCs that hate me, and that if I were to switch to a Mac, I would find myself beloved of computers. Unfortunately, I really don't think I can afford to buy one right now, so that theory will have to remain untested.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.

I don't really have much to say... but it occurred to me that having "edited" as my last standing blog entry might not be something I wanted to leave there for a long time.

The Red Sox get to play again tonight, and this is good. It would be better if it did not conflict with the premiere of West Wing, but Micah has promised to let me watch the tape of West Wing, so I will be watching the game.

On a side note, I'm pondering (very quickly... accelerated pondering is one of my great talents) doing CPE this summer after all. My conversation about CPE in the waiting room yesterday made me realize a few things that make my reasoning for putting it off look less sound. Hopefully Friday's "what you should know about CPE" meeting will help with this discernment.

Right then. Off to do a round of Seabury blogs and then read about Modalism. (I swear that's more exciting than it sounds.)

edited.

Bah.

Things I despise: computers, D-Link, coughing, being angry (especially at God), lightheadedness, having to fish for things, being told "salad" (read: lettuce with a few tomato chunks) is the vegetarian option for dinner, my blog's current unsolicited format, being stared at for two hours (especially by people I barely know), evil, stupidity, being misunderstood, this week.

That is all.

Ok... now my blog seems to be displaying each of my posts, including the one it wasn't showing before, but only part of that one, and not in the right format.

Ryan, will you help me on Friday if my blog is still acting wonky? I know it is within your power to fix this...

another test... are you still scrambled? you are not an egg, damn it!

post?

Weirdly, the posts I posted before I left home aren't here. I don't know why, but they aren't. I blame my parents' computer. For everything.

from cecily's lj:


You are a peasant! Carefree and fun, you dont care
what everyone else thinks! Simplicity keeps you
balanced and you are akin to nature. Your good
nature and humbleness makes you a great friend
and listener.

What Renaissance Type Woman are you? (with pics)
brought to you by

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

This is a test.

Ok, clearly, I have not posted a picture of my hair. This is because Kiery has not yet come over and photographed it, and I do not have a digital camera. To give you some idea... it's mostly around my shoulders, but obviously not all, since it's a shag... and when it's humid, it gets curly. Not curly like Rory's hair, more soft curly. If I use a little bit of gel when I get out of the shower, it's curlier. But even when it's not really curly, it's definitely not straight anymore at all.
(Ooh! ooh! hitting return works again!!! go me!!!)
I don't really have anything else to say. I'm mostly sitting here waiting for my bank to call me back, because they left me a message that there's a question or problem or something with a deposit I made a couple of weeks ago. This makes me nervous. I would like them to call and tell me why they called the first time. I would like it to be a fairly simple and fixable issue as well. If someone could arrange all this, that'd be fantastic.
Not really anything exciting going on... I need to start packing. Because really, by Friday I pretty much have to be packed, even though I don't leave until Sunday, because I have a lot of family stuff this weekend. I do NOT, however, have to share my room with my brother's girlfriend now, because my mother's best friend's husband is staying elsewhere this weekend. (catch all that?)
Ok. I'm going to go pack. And wait for the bank to call, so that I can do all my other errands.

Damn. I still can't create more than one paragraph. Anyway, I'm just posting to state that Kiery will be photographing the haircut on Tuesday and helping me upload and post the picture. And also to take a procrastination break from the sermon I'm writing now because I didn't know I was preaching tomorrow until an hour ago. I should really go back to writing it now.

Yikes! I just realized this hasn't been updated in nearly two months! (On a side note, does anyone know why I can't hit enter and get a new line? It's really annoying me. I'd like to create more than one paragraph.) Anyway... I'm done with camp, it was really great, I'm finally starting to think about school, etc... (Man, I really would like to make a new paragraph). And I got my hair cut today!!! I'm very excited about this. It's a shag cut, and I really like it. Ryan has requested a picture, so I intend to ask Kiery if she has the technological capabilities that I lack to be able to post one here. In fact, I'm going to do that now, and see if later I can create more than one paragraph here.

Ok, now I've been chastised by more than just Ryan for not keeping up my blog (not that you're not important, Ryan, you just spend more time on the computer), so I'd better update.

Let's see. I've survived week one of day camp, which is basically an OCD nightmare, though out in the program areas we aren't hit so hard by it. I managed not to let that director convince me that I need to be equally OCD in directing the two I have to do, which is excellent.

Thoroughly enjoyed week two of day camp... I had told the rest of the staff that week two would be way more relaxed and really fun, and luckily they agreed (though Frog admitted that during week one, they weren't going to believe it until they saw it). Two of my friends were running that one at my favorite camp and I stayed out there overnight with them for the week, along with Beasley's 11 year old nieces. Who apparently thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread... kind of amusing, since I definitely assumed the authority to treat them like they were my own campers and the familiarity to treat them like my own nieces, but there's no telling with middle school hero-worship. They were really fun though.

Right now I'm enjoying the novelty of having five days off, though I'm definitely doing some work every day on day camp stuff for August. If the numbers for Euclid Creek would stop rising by 50% every time I turn around (granted, we're talking 44 girls instead of 30, not 120 instead of 80, but still) and stay put where we have the staff to keep ratios for them, I'd have a good draft of a unit schedule done... but they won't do that somehow (even though registration is closed...). Makes me worry about Wintergreen a little, since I haven't checked on those numbers in two weeks or more.

I've broken down and bought an electric guitar tuner (why do we call battery operated tuners electric?), and have been playing my guitar a fair amount these five days. I like it. I like playing an in-tune guitar, and having the ability to tune it accurately when not at a computer, without spending half an hour with a tuning fork.

I've also discovered a Starbucks within reasonable distance of home - right by Target and Alltell. So Sunday I spent several hours at Starbucks with the NY Times and a caramel macchiato. It was probably the most relaxed I've been since I came home.

These are the exciting events of my life. I'll try not to keep you all waiting as long for the next juicy installment.

have i really only been home for two and a half weeks? have i really only been training staff for five days? these things don't seem possible.

tomorrow i'm going to my first pride festival (with my aunt and her UU group). it's a little exciting and a little scary at the same time.

i'm going to go clean the place where i stuck a stick into my leg yesterday so i can stop forgetting and putting my arm on it. yuck. (this is not as gross as it sounds, i promise.)

and i'm still very tired.

I'm so very tired.

Camp is overwhelming. I am directing two sessions of day camp, which I learned after telling my boss I'd heard rumors of me directing and her telling me, "no, no, no... you're just in charge of these two, they have no director". Um - hello - THAT MEANS I'M DIRECTING THEM!!! She also keeps giving me supervisory/administrative duties, but hasn't told the staff that my position is any different than theirs... so I have responsibility with no authority or direction right now. I talked to her after training today, but I don't know how much effect it had.

I have to go to bed now. Please pray for me.

So my friend Beasley called me tonight. (that's her camp name, not her real name). Seems that not only is our boss leaving in a few weeks (I found this out yesterday, she heard through the grapevine tonight), but day camp is in chaos. Go figure! I love Joan, but you really shouldn't put a woman who can't organize one day camp well in charge of organizing all of them. Anyway... Beasley heard from Charlotte, who's day camp coordinator, that I was directing the last three sessions of day camp (the ones that she and Charlotte aren't directing). I hope this is false, because that's the first I've heard of it... though part of me hopes it's true, because then Beasley will help and the two of us will do three fantastic day camps.

You'd think people would tell us things like who's working our camps and when they are and where they are - and oh, if we've been assigned to direct them - but no. No. Not with the Girl Scouts of Lake Erie Council.

I love my job.

I have very little to say tonight. I saw Harry Potter and it was good.

Also, while I still can't open my comments, I have figured out how to get to the comment manager on haloscan and read my comments. So comment away!!!

To the smartass who commented on my last post:

I can't access my comments. Therefore, I can't access your reply to my question. So if it was anything other than "no"... please repeat in a more useful way. Thank you.

For lack of anything I'd rather be doing:

Countdown: borrowed from Marisa's livejournal

10 bands you've been listening to a lot lately:

We'll take "a lot" generously, given the status of the first one...

1. Indigo Girls
2. Catie Curtis
3. Peter, Paul, & Mary
4. Dar Williams

ok, how about "at all" recently - as in, they're on the ECM CD.

5. Cris Williamson
6. Simon & Garfunkel
7. James Taylor
8. Carole King
9. Cat Stevens
10. Billy Joel

9 things you look forward to:

1. camp starting
2. school starting (yes, I know I'm a nerd)
3. visiting St Louis
4. other people posting new entries in their blogs
5. getting good email
6. seeing Harry Potter tomorrow
7. putting up a clean shower curtain here after my brother leaves for the summer
8. being done putting stuff away
9. Mark & Tom's ordination saturday

8 things you like to wear:

1. my torn jeans
2. my long-sleeved indigo girls shirt
3. my sandals
4. my 1991 camp t-shirt
5. hippie skirts
6. my new black&white dress
7. tank tops
8. my electric blue velour "yoga pants"

7 things that annoy you:

1. the thing that pops up on this computer every ten minutes asking if i want to block viewmgr.exe from accessing the internet
2. distance
3. stupidity
4. people who think president bush is doing a great job
5. people who don't use turn signals responsibly
6. my mother calling the ellen degeneres show "this cruddy tv"
7. people telling me that i should listen to the indigo girls less

6 things you say most days:

1. "you should" do such and such (trying to stop that one)
2. bah!
3. what are we doing for dinner?
4. I'm waiting to hear from Joan about that.
5. I miss St Louis.
6. how should I know?

5 things you do every day:

1. check my email
2. eat
3. bemoan the state of my bedroom floor
4. read SOMETHING in the newspaper
5. wonder about some major detail about camp starting

4 people you want to spend more time with:

1. Kristian
2. Rory
3. Ryan
4. Mike

(the above is a non-hierarchical list which is limited to four only because the countdown thing tells me to and should not be taken as offensive or hurtful by any parties not listed thereupon or dissatisfied with their position thereupon)

3 movies you could watch over and over again:

1. Kissing Jessica Stein
2. Now and Then
3. Sound of Music

2 of your favorite songs at the moment:

1. Wood Song
2. Free in You

(both by the indigo girls, of course)

1 person you could spend the rest of your life with:

1. there are probably a number in different ways... but I don't think that's what's meant here... so out of protest against the extreme unclarity of the question, i respectfully abstain.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled lives. Thank you.

and seriously, if anyone has any advice on how to get to my comments... email me. I can open other people's blog comments, and other people seem to be able to open mine... but I can't read them!

Does anyone know why I can't access my comments?

So I actually only had to teach a dozen girls, and since they were nearly all teenagers, it went fine. I made them do all the boring lecture part about how to do things correctly and then I let them play. They had fun.

Tomorrow I will go out with Kiery and we will play with the boats ourselves. This will be lots of fun and give me a chance to practice my solo canoeing. I wish to be confident enough in my solo paddling to teach by my self from a solo canoe, preferably by next week.

Today, however, I meet my new bishop for the first time. I do not think this will be too nervewracking, because I have seen him in public before and have heard about him, and he seems to be quite friendly and personable. Case in point: I went to the Cleveland area "conversations with the bishop" night last week and was the reporter from our group, and after everything was over, I passed Bishop Hollingsworth and he said "thanks, you did a great job". This makes me happy.

I do not relish the idea of wearing a suit today, when it will be close to 90 outside. I also do not see an alternative. I do however get to wear a skirt instead of pants.

This post is getting long. I'll stop now.

Yes, Marisa, I am now home.

I was supposed to work today and tomorrow all day, but joan, my boss, is sick and so we've been canceled. Or cancelled, whichever you prefer. At least I think tomorrow is cancel(l)ed as well. I suspect this is related to joan's decision to recover from pneumonia at work a few weeks ago. I do teach a canoeing session tomorrow night regardless, and it looks like I'll probably be teaching 16 girls alone. This makes me nervous, since I haven't canoed or taught canoeing since last August, and I can't supervise that many girls on the water at once without another instructor there anyway. At least I don't think I can. These are the things I have to re-remember each summer.

In any case, while I'm home now, the temptation to turn around and head back to St Louis is very great. I actually recited to myself why it would be a bad idea on Tuesday night lying in bed, because at that point my stuff was all still packed and could easily have been returned to my car.

I won't actually try to move back to St Louis this summer, but I do miss everyone.

I can't believe I'm leaving here day after tomorrow. As evidence of this disbelief - nay, denial, even - I present my totally unpacked belongings, still split between Rockwell House and Baker House. Though everything from the office is now in a big pile on Rory's desk. I had no idea I had so much stuff in the office. I hope everything fits in my car, or I will be getting a later start on Tuesday and mailing things first. But really, it should all fit somehow.

Tomorrow we are having a barbeque at the house, and I am making potato salad. Yum. I do so love potato salad.

My friend Stephanie from high school moved to St Louis yesterday. This means we're in the same place at the same time, which I don't think has happened since high school. Isn't that interesting? I think that's very interesting. I'm trying to call her.

Right. That's enough. This has now been updated.

I'm going to update, so that I can berate Ryan for not updating hers without qualm.

Qualm. That's a good word.

Today Kirsten's day-of-being-received. That sentence needs a verb. Was. Today WAS Kirsten's day-of-being-received. Yes. Excellent. Very exciting. Etc. Congratulations Kirsten, is really what I meant to say.

Ryan is leaving me again tonight. But tonight she's coming back a lot earlier than last night. Last night I watched three movies (Peter Pan, Robin Williams Live on Broadway, which really isn't a movie, and Boys on the Side) while she was at Trivia Night at the cathedral.

Right. I really have nothing more to say. Ryan should update now.

I like rain. I like walking in rain, dancing in rain, leading creek hikes in the rain, watching the rain roll down the windows, hearing the rain hit the platform tent, etc.

However, I do not like operating a motor vehicle in the rain. I do not like the traffic patterns caused by the rain. I do not like the slippery nature of the roads caused by the rain. I do not like the standing water caused by the rain.

Today, I got the extreme privilege of driving to Ladue, East St Louis, the Central West End, and the area north of Delmar in the rain. Hooray for me.

However, coffee afterwards was good, and now I get to have dinner.

And then go back out in the rain.

Also, the space between Marisa and Jen is inexplicable. Don't know why it's there, hoping it will go away. It's unsightly.

And the winner is...

wide-eyed and laughing!

Though you could probably tell that from the title now apparent.

Rory is gone now, which is a thing she should not have done. Jen and Chaz are also gone, and people will continue to leave, and that is also a thing which is ill-advised. (At least until I myself leave.)

Also, it's still up in the air whether Donna will live or die on West Wing. I vote for living, but I'm pretty sure they both don't care and have already filmed it.

That's enough for now. Thanks to everyone who voted - and Mike, since you didn't get to vote, I'll give you a link even without a comment. But you have to comment later some time.

I've decided that my blog needs a permanent title, to encourage me to post on it and others to read it. SO - I have insanely, but not obsessively, narrowed the possibilities to 10 (yes, all of which are Indigo Girls lyrics or references) and YOU get to vote on the title!!! Post me a comment and let me know which ones you like or don't like, and if enough people read this and vote, I'll give it an actual title and description.

And the nominees are:

~hope around the edges
~crossing from the sacred ground
~we are not precious
~looking for a sacred hand
~a hand in the darker side and our sights set on Zion
~wide-eyed and laughing
~dark in a pocket of truth
~middle of impossibility
~one true root
~dignity & light

Now you should vote. And if you're Ryan, you should also stop complaining that my blog needs to be updated.

My heart is so full of love for this community and the people in it. I can't believe that my last Wednesday night service here is over - that's been such a huge part of what I've done here this year. And it was a great service - we had a really good crowd, especially considering it's the last week of classes, and Emily was here to celebrate, and it was great having a priest who not only is really cool but who the community is comfortable with and knows, and we had fun readings and songs, and I made it all the way through my sermon without actually completely losing track of what I was saying, and then we got to eat cake and hang out afterwards! I was completely surprised by the cake/stories/etc. I wrote afterwards in my journal that it was kind of like being at my own funeral, except without the death, because the sitting around telling funny stories about someone part felt like the type of thing you would do at a funeral. Which is not to say that I didn't like it - it was a lot of fun.
And that shot of Cecily falling off the couch had better be on the video for this year. That was the funniest thing I've seen - well, heard - in a while.

Anyway, you guys (by which I guess I mean Ryan and Katy, who might actually read this ;) ) are fantastic. Thank you all, so much, for everything.

Waaah! I don't know what I just hit, but it made my entry go away. Boo.

In any case, it is now a Wednesday night at 7:34 pm (it was 7:30 in the last entry), and despite having two meetings this afternoon, the service booklets have been copied and stuffed, my guitar has been tuned (properly, even), and I have been fed by Rory. Ok, I have fed myself with yummy pasta cooked by Rory. Though I do prefer less red pepper in my spaghetti sauce. At least I think that's what I would have preferred. Also, I am about to fix and print the prayer list, if I can get through this entry this time.
I tell you this, not because you care, but because I believe this to be the only time this semester (possibly this year) that I have been so prepared on a Wednesday night, and it is not likely to happen again. I know this because there is only one more Wednesday night service, and I am preaching at it, thereby eliminating all chance for me to be this prepared by 7:30. Though I do already have next week's priest lined up, and that joy has not happened since about February.
While we're on the topic, if you have any creative ideas about what I should say in my sermon or what texts I should use, please leave me a comment (which, while having previously disappeared, have joyously reappeared) to that effect.

Ok, the thing is - I understand why they limited our signatures. People had signatures that took up three quarters of a screen. But I think 1000 characters would have been a reasonable limit. Or even 500. But 100? you can't even get through some sentences under 100 - and if you want to give someone else credit for the wisdom in your signature you get even less space for content.

So I object.

I do now in fact have comments (and therefore welcome any answers to the previous questions). I am quite proud of having figured out on my own how to add them (not that it was complicated, but still). I have not yet, however, figured out what code to use to make them appear in a different color than the background. Right now they're the purple spot next to the random pink line under the post.
Never fear, blog, I will strive to amend this posthaste.

If I had comments, and if people knew I had a blog, I would ask this question:

Why bother to allow signatures at all if you're going to limit a signature to 100 characters? I mean of course internet signatures, on things like email or the Indigo Girls bulletin board, not the official kind you put on your plastic cards. Those shouldn't be more than 100 characters, really. But the internet kind should really be long enough to allow a decent quotation.

For instance, if a post here only allowed 100 characters, all I would have in this one is:

If I had comments, and if people knew I had a blog, I would ask this question:

Why bother to allow signatures at all if you


That is very little indeed. I am glad, blog, that you do not have a character limit on your posts. Though I believe that if I had comments, there would be a limit of 1000 characters per comment. If I did, I would ask someone like Ryan to confirm this. But I don't have comments.

And therefore, I will not ask either question.

hoorah! I have successfully changed the title and description, and thoroughly rid my blog of ugly colors. For now, I am happy.

I think my next step is to think of that interesting title. Though at least now I know how to change it.

Also to think of something interesting to post here, so that when I let people know about it, there's something here to read.

It's still not 5:15. But Girly Social Hour is a very imprecise endeavor, and I have made a satisfactory number of changes for one sitting. I can now stand to look at my blog, though I will continue to play with colors.

A post! a post!