Also

Does anyone know why about every other time I open Mozilla (where my home page is Blogger Home) it says the document has no data, and the other times it works fine? It's been happening for, oh, three days now?

P.S.

Smith College lets alumnae change their address online, with a link on the front page of its alumnae section. I'm just sayin'.

How to change your billing address in the technology age

11:15: Log on to (Visa, MasterCard, etc) website
11:18: Figure out that you need to go to sponsoring bank's website
11:19: Log on to bank site
11:22: Discover that you can't do it online, or at least can't figure out how to right now
11:23: Call number on back of card
11:25: Finally get to main menu
11:26: Discover that "for address" means "if you want ours"
11:27: Return to main menu
11:28: Press 0 to speak with a representative
11:29: Begin blogging about changing billing address
11:32: Speak with customer service representative
11:33: Convince her that you really do want to change billing address
11:35: Establish new billing address
11:37: Finish rejecting other associated offers
11:38: Post

Time to go

There are things I like to do with people, and there are things I like to do alone. Sermon writing and packing are things I do best when left to my own devices. Unfortunately, they also seem to be things about which my parents want to advise me. I do not blame my parents for the fact that I'm unhappy with several parts of tomorrow's sermon. It is not at all their fault that I seem to be in a rut right now (not a preaching-the-same-thing-every-week one, but the kind where I seem to be utterly unable to fix the mistakes that I know are there). It's also not an invitation for them to explain to me what I should do about it (especially since neither of them has ever actually DONE it. Come to think of it, I'm not sure the last time either of them wrote anything other than an email or a memo.)

It's time for me to get back to Evanston - unfortunately, I've got another week, in which I still have to pack all my stuff, fix this sermon as best I can, write another one for next Sunday, and spend a lot of family time.

Then Again, Maybe I Won't

I was going to write you a beautiful poem...

I mean, I was going to write you all a real, actual post. Then my mother called and asked me to come help reorganize her new library (she's recently become the high school librarian). And you know how I feel about organizing books....

Very Model of a Modern Minor Generalist

So, I was just listening to my iTunes, which includes a couple of uploaded albums from my flirting-with-fundamentalism period - and by "couple" I might actually just mean "one," Steven Curtis Chapman's Heaven in the Real World album.* I'm not sure there are any others in there. Anyway, "Dancing with the Dinosaur" came up, and it occurred to me that the lyrics to that particular song read somewhat like a modernist Christian anthem. It starts out:

Once upon a time not so long ago in a land not so far away
Right and wrong were not quite so hard to know
And black and white were not so gray

Then there's the bridge:

Right is right and wrong is wrong just like it has been along
We cannot sit by and see conscience become history
So come on, get up and dance
Dance this dance with me
(Gonna keep on dancing, gonna keep on dancing with the dinosaur
Gonna keep on dancing, gonna keep on dancing with the dinosaur)

I've been reading about postmodernism, theology, and Scripture the last couple of weeks, and continuing to discover how many of my long-standing (read: since before memory) habits and tendencies fall under that umbrella. Suddenly, I'm a little clearer on why parts of that song never quite sat well with me. (Yeah, I never really made a very good fundamentalist. I dropped it about as soon as I figured out that "serious Christian" didn't have to equate to "fundamentalist." Which, really, didn't take that long.) It might be interesting to spend a little more time thinking about the ways this particular song, artist, and/or genre are or are not thoroughly intertwined with/dependent on modernism. (For instance, he seems to assume that before the "tolerance movement" everyone (at least in the Church) saw things as black and white all the time, whereas I think Augustine's work on grace and free will pretty well shoots that down all by itself.) I wouldn't be surprised, really, to learn that someone's already doing/done this with the genre, but this song seems particularly useful for that kind of investigation.

While I'm at it

While I'm here and book posting, this one came from the Little Professor: Which authors dominate your shelves? (Domination = five or more books)

This is from memory, since most of my books are at school, but here's a guess: Louisa May Alcott, Madeleine L'Engle, Maud Hart Lovelace, L.M. Montgomery, J.K. Rowling, Valerie Tripp, Shakespeare, Ann M. Martin, Toni Morrison, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Irving Stone... ok, I'm not sure I can think of any from my shelves at school that I have in such volume, except L'Engle. (I do not count either General Convention or the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music as an author.) These are all from home.

I'll keep thinking, but now it's time for shower and bed.

If Ryan's posting, I am too.

(For clarity's sake, I mean this Ryan.)


1. One book that changed your life:
Madeleine L'Engle, A Swiftly Tilting Planet

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
Louisa May Alcott, Little Women is the first one that came to mind.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
The Bible (Since that's not a terribly interesting answer in these circles, if I could have two I'd also want Little Women.)

4. One book that made you laugh:
Jon Stewart (&co.), America (the book)

5. One book that made you cry:
Nicholas Wolsterstorff, Lament for a Son - five lines in, and all the way through

6. One book that you wish had been written:
Rumor has it that, before she left the public eye, Madeleine L'Engle was working on a novel about Meg Murry after her kids have left home....

7. One book that you wish you had never read:
Alas, Babylon. That's 90 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

8. One book you’re currently reading:
Stephen Fowl, Engaging Scripture

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
Augustine's Confessions

Spud! camp! yay!

YAY!!! I just got off the phone, and the universe seems to like me today. After 30 minutes on two different phone calls, it works out that:

~I'm supposed to be at day camp on Tues on a day off.
~Core Camp needs someone tomorrow.
~I'm off tomorrow.
~Parishioner died today, which was expected. (93 years old, had major stroke on Sunday.)
~The funeral is not until Monday.
~Our on-call/supply/future part-time priest and parish administrator are doing all the prep work, which is minimal.

Ergo: I still get to do both camp gigs, without interfering in the slightest with my pastoral responsibilities. YAY!!!! I'm going to my camps! Both of them! Soon!

Also, on my way out to core camp tonight, I'm stopping to have dinner with a camp friend and meet her daughter, who she adopted right after I started seminary.

Hrmph

Kristian - if you happen to read this, my parents' house has terrible phone reception, especially during the summer storms we've been getting, and I've lost your email address. Sorry - hope to connect soon!

Maybe not all the way there...

I've been feeling much more like my parents' house is home than I have in several years. This makes sense, really - it's been a while since I've lived here consistently. Today, though, I was reminded that we're not really all the way there yet.

I had to look up directions to a house within walking distance of my parents' house, only a few houses away from the house where my grammar school best friend lived. I have been back and forth between her house and mine countless times, even on my own. I just haven't done it in over ten years.

Amazing what being home can do to a girl...

I'm sitting at the kitchen table watching A Philadelphia Story and buffing my nails. I've never in my life buffed my nails before, but I've been reading my childhood novels lately, from a time and place where nail polish wasn't yet socially acceptable, and I've been inspired to buff my nails. It's astounding, really, what a difference mere buffing makes. I may not even get around to paint them at all, they're so pretty just filed and buffed.

I do like Keira Knightley...

Which Pirates of the Caribbean character are you?

Aberration

Ok, season 6 of West Wing does in fact bite, and the Canadian invasion thing is a little forced, but overall, "A Good Day" is really a decent episode. It's nice to have a breath of fresh writing in the middle of the season.

(Yeah, I know I'm a little behind. Don't anyone tell me anything about the rest of the series - if Susie can keep from telling me about it, you can too.)

Hi there!

I expect to be around here a bit more now - my parents now have working wireless! My mother recently bought a new laptop for her new work, and she needed to be able to access the internet, but didn't want to leave my dad without internet at home, so they got wireless. The computer guys have finally, after a week or so, figured out how to hook the old one up to dsl and the new one up to wireless on the same system. (Turns out, hooking in my iBook, not so difficult.) So, I can now blog and especially read blogs much more easily. (Yay for having my RSS feed back!) I can't guarantee I'll have much to say, as usual, but I can say it now.

Link

Those who follow debates over interpretations of Scripture, particularly in the current Anglican climate, may find this Sermon on the Current Dispute Over Turning Off Cellphones in the British Library Reading Rooms more amusing than those who don't follow such debates, but it's worth reading either way.

For my part, I've already read it, so I'm heading back to Rory and Ryan and Kate's house to shower and iron and warble in preparation for Hope and Andrew's ordination to the priesthood tonight.

Oops

No, I'm not traumatized by the PB election, nor anything of the sort. I've just been crazy busy for the last week. I'm trying to put in a little extra time right now because I'll be out of the office Weds-Sat this week, plus I have to get ready for the ordinations and wedding themselves. Also, living with my parents, while wonderful, takes up more time than living by myself. We've been to a ball game, driven out to my cousin's engagement party (finally - they've been dating for six years), hosted my brother's financial advising welcome event, etc. So when I have had a couple of minutes, they've mostly been devoted to laundry, ironing, cooking, or sleeping.

As to my last post - I'd been highly concerned about how Bishop Jefferts Schori had gotten elected, based on things I'd heard from various sources around Convention the previous couple of days. In the days since, it's become pretty clear to me that the bishops responded to her capacity, leadership, maturity, and clear-headedness rather than pushing for a particular agenda (either right or left), though it's entirely possible that was an element also. I'm still slightly concerned about international ramifications, but mostly I'm just very pleased at their choice.

Not now

I'm entirely too conflicted to comment on the election of Jefferts Schiori as Presiding Bishop right now. I'll try to work something out here later.

For the record

I object to having to get up before 7 more than once in the same week. Really, I'd just as soon be able to sleep until 8 every day and 9 or 10 once every couple of weeks, but I accept that 8:00 services don't really allow that schedule. I just don't think I should have to do it on other days besides Sunday.

I danced!

Tonight, I went back to my old studio and braved the advanced class at my old dance studio. I'm relieved to report that my body still remembers a lot. Mentally, I can still keep up, and physically I'm not even doing all that badly. Am I out of shape? Yes. I'm a little slower, considerably less flexible, and significantly rounder than I was when I stopped dancing. (Although, skinny seems to have gone out of vogue in that studio - I was by no means unusually large for that class, which was both nice and odd.) But my turnout is still as good as my bone structure will allow, I can still pick up combinations about as well as most of the girls (even if it's because I'm paying better attention), and it didn't hurt too much. (I kept going back and forth during barre between wanting to push myself and wanting not to injure myself. Then I pushed my leg a little too high during an arabesque and decided to go for not injuring myself. Hey, I never said I liked being out of shape....) Sadly, the only plain technique class this summer is Tuesdays at 4:15, which is a little tough with work, but I'm told I can come learn choreography for the fall performance and stand in for missing dancers, and there's an adult beginners class, so I should be able to take some classes, anyway. I'm pretty excited about it (can you tell?).