Great Scott tells me I've been shrieking in my sleep again. Not horribly loudly, but enough to startle him awake. He's been sleeping on the couch when this happens, although he often switches to the couch partway through the night simply because if he wakes up, he has a hard time falling asleep again.
When we were first married, I often had nightmares or night terrors in which I would try to scream and fight myself awake and couldn't. In reality, I WAS screaming--very loudly--and sometimes physically fighting, too, although I didn't know it at the time. Great Scott would try irritably to wake me up, usually to no avail and often with some element of risk. ("It was the punching me in the head...like a speedbag...that sort of...got to me," he says as he reads this now. Hmmm...come to think of it, maybe this has something to do with why he moves to the couch.)
I don't think this round is quite as bad. For one thing, I'm told I'm not nearly as loud, and I'm not attacking anyone, either. Still, it's one more thing that tells me something needs to give somewhere, one more small red flag flapping frantically in a rising wind.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Tears
This week I have cried three times.
I am not a crier, in general. Crying is not reasonable. It accomplished nothing and more often than not muddies conflicts and intensifies difficult emotions, is merely complicating rather than productive to any given situation. This is my stance on the matter. Nevertheless, Monday when I walked in the door from taking the girls to school, I sat down on the couch, dropped my head in my hands and sobbed; Tuesday night, reading Mary Oliver's newest book, Thirst, in a bathtub full of warm, rosewood-scented water somewhere near midnight, I had to close my eyes and lay the book aside, choking on tears; and this morning driving home from the school drop-off, I found my knuckles clenching white on the steering wheel, the road blurring before me, my body tight with tears yet again.
Maybe it's just the season. Autumn has, as I've written before, always been a difficult time for me. Coming after the year it does, this time, it has quite a bit of deeply stored pain to tap into. Much has gone on this year regarding my extended family and church, and I've carried a heaviness that surfaces everytime we watch the movie Serenity (as we do often here at PossumBox Lane) and the character River Tam cries out, "...it isn't mine. And I shouldn't have to carry it. It isn't mine!"
"I need a month off from church," I told Great Scott, "as soon as the girls are back in school." How to explain the crush of sorrow when one sets foot in the sanctuary? How to explain the cessation of breath?
I am not a crier, in general. Crying is not reasonable. It accomplished nothing and more often than not muddies conflicts and intensifies difficult emotions, is merely complicating rather than productive to any given situation. This is my stance on the matter. Nevertheless, Monday when I walked in the door from taking the girls to school, I sat down on the couch, dropped my head in my hands and sobbed; Tuesday night, reading Mary Oliver's newest book, Thirst, in a bathtub full of warm, rosewood-scented water somewhere near midnight, I had to close my eyes and lay the book aside, choking on tears; and this morning driving home from the school drop-off, I found my knuckles clenching white on the steering wheel, the road blurring before me, my body tight with tears yet again.
Maybe it's just the season. Autumn has, as I've written before, always been a difficult time for me. Coming after the year it does, this time, it has quite a bit of deeply stored pain to tap into. Much has gone on this year regarding my extended family and church, and I've carried a heaviness that surfaces everytime we watch the movie Serenity (as we do often here at PossumBox Lane) and the character River Tam cries out, "...it isn't mine. And I shouldn't have to carry it. It isn't mine!"
"I need a month off from church," I told Great Scott, "as soon as the girls are back in school." How to explain the crush of sorrow when one sets foot in the sanctuary? How to explain the cessation of breath?
Friday Quote: On Prayer
"I know a lot of fancy words,
I tear them from my heart and my tongue.
Then I pray."
--Mary Oliver
an excerpt from the poem, "Six Recognitions of the Lord"
from Thirst
I tear them from my heart and my tongue.
Then I pray."
--Mary Oliver
an excerpt from the poem, "Six Recognitions of the Lord"
from Thirst
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day!
Every year we observe International Talk Like a Pirate Day. At least, some of us do. Great Scott gives his students extra credit for answering roll with the reply, "Arrgh!" I roust the girls out of their bed with a cheery, "Avast, ye landlubbers and scurvy dogs!" And I see that Jeremy has posted a rousing pirate ditty.
For those of you who aren't as confident of your pirate lingo skills, Quotidian Light is happy to provide you with access to an educational video. (Link compliments of my father, who instilled in me my great love of all the finer things in life.)
For those of you who aren't as confident of your pirate lingo skills, Quotidian Light is happy to provide you with access to an educational video. (Link compliments of my father, who instilled in me my great love of all the finer things in life.)
Friday, September 15, 2006
Friday Quote: On Writing
"We should be told: Write fast, write close to the bone, write for ten hours straight until you're not thinking in words anymore but in colors, in smells, in waves of memory. Write what you care about. Don't waste any more of your life on what does not matter to you."
--Bonnie Friedman
from Writing Past Dark
--Bonnie Friedman
from Writing Past Dark
The Note
To: The Mighty, Mighty Powers of Jr. High Administration
[Older Daughter's Name] was absent yesterday (Thursday, September 15th) due to sickness. She spent the day pining. It was pitiful to behold, yea, verily.
'An it please your Worships, please allow her to collect make-up work today that she might labor upon it over the weekend and present it complete upon the first day of the new week next.
You have our gratitude,
Cindy Lawson
"Mom," said our older daughter, eyeing the note I'd written, "this note is a little bit..." She paused, then gave me a look that was part disapproval, part hesitation and partly a plea. The note dangled from her fingers like a small dead frog.
"Would you like for me to write it over?" I asked.
She wavered, then as I picked up my notepad and pen again, said sincerely, "Thanks, Mom."
This is it. She's growing up. Becoming a little more her own person, and that means my giving her more room to do that, by making my communications with others in her everyday world a little more bland, a little more ordinary, a little more blend-in-ish. I wrote the note over. It was a small thing. Perhaps it was even for the best. I'm afraid my own reputation at the school is that of being somewhat eccentric, and my original note probably wouldn't have helped dispell the impression.
[Older Daughter's Name] was sick at home yesterday, as I explained when I called. Please allow her to collect and complete her missed assignments.
Thank you very much,
Cindy Lawson
[Older Daughter's Name] was absent yesterday (Thursday, September 15th) due to sickness. She spent the day pining. It was pitiful to behold, yea, verily.
'An it please your Worships, please allow her to collect make-up work today that she might labor upon it over the weekend and present it complete upon the first day of the new week next.
You have our gratitude,
Cindy Lawson
"Mom," said our older daughter, eyeing the note I'd written, "this note is a little bit..." She paused, then gave me a look that was part disapproval, part hesitation and partly a plea. The note dangled from her fingers like a small dead frog.
"Would you like for me to write it over?" I asked.
She wavered, then as I picked up my notepad and pen again, said sincerely, "Thanks, Mom."
This is it. She's growing up. Becoming a little more her own person, and that means my giving her more room to do that, by making my communications with others in her everyday world a little more bland, a little more ordinary, a little more blend-in-ish. I wrote the note over. It was a small thing. Perhaps it was even for the best. I'm afraid my own reputation at the school is that of being somewhat eccentric, and my original note probably wouldn't have helped dispell the impression.
[Older Daughter's Name] was sick at home yesterday, as I explained when I called. Please allow her to collect and complete her missed assignments.
Thank you very much,
Cindy Lawson
Monday, September 11, 2006
The Stinger
Tonight the dinner conversation whirled around a wasp I had just sprayed in the window. It lay kicking convulsively, and the younger daughter kept turning around in her seat to mourn its torment.
"The poor thing," she moaned, "it's in pain!"
"Nonsense," retorted Great Scott. "Your mother does not torture insects!" After a meaningful moment of silence he added, "She's a Republican." Another moment passed. "And she'll never do it again."
"The poor thing," she moaned, "it's in pain!"
"Nonsense," retorted Great Scott. "Your mother does not torture insects!" After a meaningful moment of silence he added, "She's a Republican." Another moment passed. "And she'll never do it again."
Friday, September 08, 2006
Creating Your Own System Error Message
Technically, I suppose this could go under the "Procrastination Aids" heading, but as you'll see, what I'm about to share with you is in a class of its own. This week Grumpy Teacher posted a link to a site with a customizable highway sign picture . After a little poking around, I discovered that this site also had an area for creating your own computer error messages.
Like this one.
Like this one.
Visit the Gallery of Errors at your own risk. Some are a little bleh, but most are more along the lines of the one above and great fun. Now if one of you computer geniuses can only figure out a way for us to actually USE these! (Jeremy, I'm looking meaningfully in your direction.)
Friday Quote: On Fools
A fellow who is always declaring he's no fool usually has his suspicions.
--Wilson Mizner (1876 - 1933)
--Wilson Mizner (1876 - 1933)
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Procrastination Aids: If You Were a Major Romantic Poet
You are William Blake! Wow. I'm impressed. Not only are you a self-made artist and poet, but you've suddenly become a very trendy guy to like. It's not that we doubt that you have all your marbles, it's just that we're not quite sure what you did with them to come up with those terrifying theological visions. The people of your time were nowhere near as forgiving as that, and all your neighbors thought you were a grade-A nut job. But we love you, so rest happy.
Take this quiz!
Friday, September 01, 2006
Friday Quote: Stringing Beads
I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountaintop, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten: happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.
--Brenda Ueland
--Brenda Ueland
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Perspectives in Stone and Lead
Journaling: from the Lake Pond, August 29, 2006
I know now why I am so drawn to picture jasper. It is the color of pondbank stones, of the gravelbars in Ozark creekbeds. If I could string this pond, I would use picture jasper and nephrite jade, would add onyx and bloodstone and a little peridot. Perhaps some brecciated jasper, too, for the red clay earth, iolite and blue lace agate for the heavens mixed today with dark clouds and bright patches of clear sky. The waters themselves ripple-pleated by the wind? Something greenish grey or greyish green with pyrite flecking across its surface. The woods were all moss agate and silver moonstone.
I was full of thoughts to write on the walk here. Now I arrive and find the thinking was enough. Sometimes lining one's interior rooms with precious things means not bringing them out and spreading them over the lawn.
The air is cool today, breezy. I wrapped in a throw, puttering around the house this morning. The first hickory nuts have fallen in the woods. One small tree flamed scarlet against the deeper greens and forest greys to the side of the path. Small golden leaves scattered from another as I stepped into the hidden meadow. Not until the sun blazed from behind a cloud did I realize my arms had goosebumps, so subltly had they risen. Daddy-long-legs spiders are daily brushed down from the ceilings in the house and transported outside.
I want to leave something beautiful behind. Perhaps not great or amazing, but something small and lovely, something that glows softly like light caught in fog.
Alchemy. Lead to gold. Science or art? Art, I believe. One well worth pursuing. It does strike me that to turn lead to gold, though, one has to begin with lead.
Yesterday I had a long conversation with B. She's got some topics she wants to pursue in writing but finds herself putting them off because of the heavy emotional price she knows she'll have to pay in order to write well about them. It takes a great deal of emotional and spiritual energy to write well about some things, to write what you know needs to be said in the manner in which you need to say it. Lead is heavy. When one works with it, one becomes fatigued.
I know now why I am so drawn to picture jasper. It is the color of pondbank stones, of the gravelbars in Ozark creekbeds. If I could string this pond, I would use picture jasper and nephrite jade, would add onyx and bloodstone and a little peridot. Perhaps some brecciated jasper, too, for the red clay earth, iolite and blue lace agate for the heavens mixed today with dark clouds and bright patches of clear sky. The waters themselves ripple-pleated by the wind? Something greenish grey or greyish green with pyrite flecking across its surface. The woods were all moss agate and silver moonstone.
I was full of thoughts to write on the walk here. Now I arrive and find the thinking was enough. Sometimes lining one's interior rooms with precious things means not bringing them out and spreading them over the lawn.
The air is cool today, breezy. I wrapped in a throw, puttering around the house this morning. The first hickory nuts have fallen in the woods. One small tree flamed scarlet against the deeper greens and forest greys to the side of the path. Small golden leaves scattered from another as I stepped into the hidden meadow. Not until the sun blazed from behind a cloud did I realize my arms had goosebumps, so subltly had they risen. Daddy-long-legs spiders are daily brushed down from the ceilings in the house and transported outside.
I want to leave something beautiful behind. Perhaps not great or amazing, but something small and lovely, something that glows softly like light caught in fog.
Alchemy. Lead to gold. Science or art? Art, I believe. One well worth pursuing. It does strike me that to turn lead to gold, though, one has to begin with lead.
Yesterday I had a long conversation with B. She's got some topics she wants to pursue in writing but finds herself putting them off because of the heavy emotional price she knows she'll have to pay in order to write well about them. It takes a great deal of emotional and spiritual energy to write well about some things, to write what you know needs to be said in the manner in which you need to say it. Lead is heavy. When one works with it, one becomes fatigued.
Indignity
The girls spent the weekend with their grandmother not long ago. She took them to the Build-A-Bear Workshop and bought them stuffed animals for which they were able to select clothes and accessories. Both girls chose stuffed cats. Imagine their delight this morning when they discovered that the stuffed cat clothes fit The Great Golden Sun Cat.
He should have been grateful. The other option was a pink cheerleading outfit.
He should have been grateful. The other option was a pink cheerleading outfit.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Friday Quote: a Mishmash
Actually, this is a sort of meme, unabashedly stolen from Seeker, who consistently posts quotes and snippets that make me suspect someone's been "reading my mail." The rules: "Go here and look through random quotes until you find 5 that you think reflect who you are or what you believe."
Mine:
Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.
---Will Cuppy
Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure.
---F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940), Tender is the Night
What I give form to in daylight is only one per cent of what I have seen in darkness.
---M. C. Escher (1898 - 1972), Quoted in Comic Sections, D. MacHale (Dublin 1993)
To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.
---Joseph Chilton Pearce
When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
---R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983)
Nerds don't just happen to dress informally. They do it too consistently. Consciously or not, they dress informally as a prophylactic measure against stupidity.
---Paul Graham, September 2004
Yes, I know I used six. That last one was entirely too good to pass up.
Mine:
Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.
---Will Cuppy
Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure.
---F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940), Tender is the Night
What I give form to in daylight is only one per cent of what I have seen in darkness.
---M. C. Escher (1898 - 1972), Quoted in Comic Sections, D. MacHale (Dublin 1993)
To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.
---Joseph Chilton Pearce
When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
---R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983)
Nerds don't just happen to dress informally. They do it too consistently. Consciously or not, they dress informally as a prophylactic measure against stupidity.
---Paul Graham, September 2004
Yes, I know I used six. That last one was entirely too good to pass up.
One Book: A Meme
1. One book that changed my life: Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard Foster
2. One book I've read more than once: Od Magic by Patricia McKillip
3. One book I'd want on a desert island: Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
4. One book that made me laugh: The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass aged 37 3/4 by Adrian Plass
5. One book that made me cry: An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison
6. One book I wish had been written: I wish Jane Kenyon had written a book of essays on her experiences with mood difficulties and on living well with them, something I believe she did.
7. One book I wish had never been written: I feel unqualified to comment. Possibly Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, for which I have a somewhat unreasonable antipathy..
8. One book I'm currently reading: Introductory Psychology through Science Fiction—a used bookstore find. Fun.
9. One book I've been meaning to read: De Profundis by Oscar Wilde
10. One book I'd like to write: Something beautiful and strange, like mist when the sun rises through it, something at once simple and hidden, something bright in the midst of great darkness.
Tapped by Kristin
Tapping Great Scott and Julie Carter.
2. One book I've read more than once: Od Magic by Patricia McKillip
3. One book I'd want on a desert island: Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
4. One book that made me laugh: The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass aged 37 3/4 by Adrian Plass
5. One book that made me cry: An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison
6. One book I wish had been written: I wish Jane Kenyon had written a book of essays on her experiences with mood difficulties and on living well with them, something I believe she did.
7. One book I wish had never been written: I feel unqualified to comment. Possibly Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, for which I have a somewhat unreasonable antipathy..
8. One book I'm currently reading: Introductory Psychology through Science Fiction—a used bookstore find. Fun.
9. One book I've been meaning to read: De Profundis by Oscar Wilde
10. One book I'd like to write: Something beautiful and strange, like mist when the sun rises through it, something at once simple and hidden, something bright in the midst of great darkness.
Tapped by Kristin
Tapping Great Scott and Julie Carter.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Pragmatic Romanticism
We are romantics at our house. We watch "Lord of the Rings" together over Christmas break every year, sniffling throughout. Scott even tears up during "Serenity" and "Lady Jane", and the girls...the girls are all about daring rescues and hope and love and drama. Ah, the drama! Still, we live in a very real world here at Possum Box Lane. The house is old with all sorts of quirks and problems, and we have to adjust: when the wind blows just right during a storm, the windows in the downstairs bedroom are going to leak; spiders (wolf and brown recluse) are a seasonal issue; and the plumbing is temperamental. It makes for a funny mix sometimes, living in any number of ideal worlds and in the real one at the same time.
This morning "Return of the Jedi" was playing in the living room, specifically the climactic scene complete with intense music and flaring blue lights as Darth Vader makes his redeeming choice, lifts his evil master, the Emperor, and hurls him over the guard rails and down the Death's Star's shaft where a final explosion of electric blue billows deep in the core, signifying the end of the evil empire.
After a moment of silence, the older daughter speaks. "That's bad. That's gonna plug something up."
This morning "Return of the Jedi" was playing in the living room, specifically the climactic scene complete with intense music and flaring blue lights as Darth Vader makes his redeeming choice, lifts his evil master, the Emperor, and hurls him over the guard rails and down the Death's Star's shaft where a final explosion of electric blue billows deep in the core, signifying the end of the evil empire.
After a moment of silence, the older daughter speaks. "That's bad. That's gonna plug something up."
Friday, August 11, 2006
Jr. High
Yesterday the girls and I went to the schoolhouse to register the older daughter for Jr. High. She saw some of her friends and said hi. She was measured and weighed. Her vision was tested. Her lunch account was brought up to date, and she was given her lunch card. Then came the biggie--her very own locker. Number in hand, she walked the hall, her younger sister running excitedly ahead of her to locate it first: her very own space within this institution of higher learning, her home away from home. She found it. She fingered the latch and opened it at last. Inside the door, scrawled in dark marker was the word, "WHORE".
Welcome to Jr. High, my dear.
Welcome to Jr. High, my dear.
Friday, August 04, 2006
Friday Quote: On Freedom and Camels
"Do not free the camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel."
--G.K. Chesterton
--G.K. Chesterton
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Suggested Church Dinner Contributions for the Chronically Kitchen Challenged
I have found that preparing a brain mold, served on a lovely floral, china platter with a small card bearing the inspirational inscription, "We have been given the mind of Christ," is a very effective way of ensuring that you are forevermore allowed to bring the chips and soda. ONLY the chips and soda.
And, yes, I did.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Written Letters: an Experiment and Offer to QL Readers
Last week I sent a friend a four page, handwritten letter and was surprised to see it was an unusual enough event for her to blog about it. I had to agree with many of Beth's thoughts on the increasing rarity of letter writing and receiving and on the ways in which emails, immediate and handy as they are, usually fall short of the sensual and emotional satisfaction of a pen and ink and paper letter for their readers.
Oddly enough, as I was writing the letter she received, I found myself thinking in ways I'd not thought in a long time, slowing down, allowing myself to wander, to amble, to write langourously, in love with the feel of the paper scratching gently beneath the fountain pen's nib and my own words. (One of my favorite quotes states that an essayist is a person who has simply found a way to talk about themselves without being uninterrupted. I have to laughingly agree.) I used to write letters more than frequently, but the immediate gratification of cyberspace communication has eaten away at that activity, and it has been only recently that I've begun penning short notes once more. Beth's four page letter was a return to the days during which I would very often write lengthy epistles tossed to the mercy of the Post Awful at least three or four times a week to various folk.
Handwritten letters. Good for the receiver. Good for the sender. Why not, then, make an offer to my readers? My email is listed in my Blogger profile (link above under picture). Send me an email with the subject line "Quotidian Light Letter Request," include your snail mail address in the email, and I'll scribble out a real, live, handwritten letter and send back to you through the mail. I make no guarantees about its content or length. It may be one page or six, full of family ridiculosities or theological ponderments or rambling description of the Ozarks countryside. If you're a regular reader, there may be personal comments. If you've never commented, I'll do my best with whatever information you give me about yourself in the email or will fake it blindly.
A letter. A personal, handwritten letter in your mailbox to confirm and affirm your existence in the coporeal world. A real, live, inky, fibrous, living, breathing letter with your very own name on the envelope, written just for you. Tempted?
Oddly enough, as I was writing the letter she received, I found myself thinking in ways I'd not thought in a long time, slowing down, allowing myself to wander, to amble, to write langourously, in love with the feel of the paper scratching gently beneath the fountain pen's nib and my own words. (One of my favorite quotes states that an essayist is a person who has simply found a way to talk about themselves without being uninterrupted. I have to laughingly agree.) I used to write letters more than frequently, but the immediate gratification of cyberspace communication has eaten away at that activity, and it has been only recently that I've begun penning short notes once more. Beth's four page letter was a return to the days during which I would very often write lengthy epistles tossed to the mercy of the Post Awful at least three or four times a week to various folk.
Handwritten letters. Good for the receiver. Good for the sender. Why not, then, make an offer to my readers? My email is listed in my Blogger profile (link above under picture). Send me an email with the subject line "Quotidian Light Letter Request," include your snail mail address in the email, and I'll scribble out a real, live, handwritten letter and send back to you through the mail. I make no guarantees about its content or length. It may be one page or six, full of family ridiculosities or theological ponderments or rambling description of the Ozarks countryside. If you're a regular reader, there may be personal comments. If you've never commented, I'll do my best with whatever information you give me about yourself in the email or will fake it blindly.
A letter. A personal, handwritten letter in your mailbox to confirm and affirm your existence in the coporeal world. A real, live, inky, fibrous, living, breathing letter with your very own name on the envelope, written just for you. Tempted?
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Staring at the Ceiling Fan
Actually, we don't have a ceiling fan, but if we did, this is where I would be right now. I'm posting mostly out of obligation. I have a blog. It is lonely. It lurks in my internet browser, waiting patiently, not even wimpering, but looking sad and forlorn. After a certain amount of neglect, it wouldn't even show its heartbroken face, but would instead hide behind a blank page, stifling its tears in the far corners of cyberspace, unable to hold up its poor little head among the other blogs whose more attentive authors stop by to feed them tidbits daily.
Yes, I also think the food on my plate is disappointed if I don't eat it all and that the books on my shelves are bereft of comfort if I don't read or at least touch or talk to them every now and then. Don't even ask about the anthropomorphic properties of my houseplants. Some night, I am convinced, my patient african violets will arise and do me in. Something right out of Bradbury, only with a Better Homes & Gardens touch. There's a blog entry in that, somewhere.
The girls are supposed to be in VBS this week in the next town where we go to church, the same town in which the Little House play is currently running, 25 minutes away. I tried. I really did. I got them in the car Sunday evening and drove them into town. Got as far as the city limits before I could go no farther. The thought of making that drive every single night, getting home late and tired with the girls hungry after having been rushed through a mere semblance of dinner too early in the evening...it was too much to bear even contemplating. Turned around and drove back. Am taking them to VBS at a little country church we used to attend, about 3 minutes down the road. They're going with friends from school; they're being fed dinner there; and I can drop them off and come back home for 2 1/2 blessed hours of solitude and silence before picking them back up. (At the other church, I would've been staying and working.)
Last night I walked into the quiet house (I've not been entirely alone this summer save 2wce, for 2 hours each time, and then I was sick.) and soaked in the silence. I turned on the computer and wrote (something I've not done for ages), did some yoga and wrote some more. There is a part of me that motherhood and doing the whole evangelical family-raising things has buried, and I am not sure that it need do so.
I am the world's worst for inadvertently (even when I'm unwilling and watching for it) buying into whatever "plan" is currently being offered/pushed by people I love or respect. I did it in college, touched that my professors had an interest, even in some cases, enthusiasm, about my future. I have done it in the churches we've been involved with since our marriage. It is much "safer" to lie quietly down in whatever coffin is being offered one, hoping to make a quiet escape later when the graveyard crew is distracted than it is to look them in the eye and let them know they're the ones that are crazy if they think for one moment you're going to buy into what they're offering, to allow them to keep shoveling cheery shovelfuls of dark earth over you any longer. I've allowed it too often and too long. I will allow it no more. Now I'm clawing at the dirt, determinedly digging my way to the surface, bruised fingers, torn nails and all. God help me if I ever lie down in a box again.
Yes, I also think the food on my plate is disappointed if I don't eat it all and that the books on my shelves are bereft of comfort if I don't read or at least touch or talk to them every now and then. Don't even ask about the anthropomorphic properties of my houseplants. Some night, I am convinced, my patient african violets will arise and do me in. Something right out of Bradbury, only with a Better Homes & Gardens touch. There's a blog entry in that, somewhere.
The girls are supposed to be in VBS this week in the next town where we go to church, the same town in which the Little House play is currently running, 25 minutes away. I tried. I really did. I got them in the car Sunday evening and drove them into town. Got as far as the city limits before I could go no farther. The thought of making that drive every single night, getting home late and tired with the girls hungry after having been rushed through a mere semblance of dinner too early in the evening...it was too much to bear even contemplating. Turned around and drove back. Am taking them to VBS at a little country church we used to attend, about 3 minutes down the road. They're going with friends from school; they're being fed dinner there; and I can drop them off and come back home for 2 1/2 blessed hours of solitude and silence before picking them back up. (At the other church, I would've been staying and working.)
Last night I walked into the quiet house (I've not been entirely alone this summer save 2wce, for 2 hours each time, and then I was sick.) and soaked in the silence. I turned on the computer and wrote (something I've not done for ages), did some yoga and wrote some more. There is a part of me that motherhood and doing the whole evangelical family-raising things has buried, and I am not sure that it need do so.
I am the world's worst for inadvertently (even when I'm unwilling and watching for it) buying into whatever "plan" is currently being offered/pushed by people I love or respect. I did it in college, touched that my professors had an interest, even in some cases, enthusiasm, about my future. I have done it in the churches we've been involved with since our marriage. It is much "safer" to lie quietly down in whatever coffin is being offered one, hoping to make a quiet escape later when the graveyard crew is distracted than it is to look them in the eye and let them know they're the ones that are crazy if they think for one moment you're going to buy into what they're offering, to allow them to keep shoveling cheery shovelfuls of dark earth over you any longer. I've allowed it too often and too long. I will allow it no more. Now I'm clawing at the dirt, determinedly digging my way to the surface, bruised fingers, torn nails and all. God help me if I ever lie down in a box again.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Thoughts on the False Self and Original Sin
Beth, writing on Inscapes, posts from a Christian perspective about "finding oneself," the effort to figure out or discover who and what one really is so that one can live in accordance with that truest nature--surely the key to true happiness.
I've used the term "false self" for some time now, even mentioning it here on Quotidian Light. It isn't an official term I'd found anywhere, but a simply a term I use in my own mind to describe the internal turmoil and tussle with habits and faulty/damaging thinking that I know are sheer nonsense but that have their sharp little talons sunken deep into my life nonetheless. Growing up, I was taught that all human beings are inherently bad, evil, from birth, a concept my teachers called "original sin." I may offend or horrify my more Calvinistic friends by saying so, but I don't swallow it. I didn't when I was a child (although eventually I learned to quit arguing with my teachers, since it only seemed to upset them), and I don't now. Traditional definition of "original sin" or no, however, it's fairly self-evident that human beings aren't all sunshine and sweetness by a long shot, either. We're pretty messed up, I'll be the first to admit.
Last week I was reading Thomas Keating's Open Mind Open Heart, a book on centering prayer and the contemplative dimension of the gospel, and I had to restrain myself from leaping to my feet and running around the room singing, "Yes!Yes!Yes!Yes!Yes!" Here are some excerpts of what struck me so forcibly:
"The term 'original sin' is a way of describing the human condition, which is the universal experience of coming to full reflective self-consciousness without the certitude of personal union with God. ..
"Original sin is not the result of personal wrongdoing on our part. Still, it causes a pervasive feeling of alienation from God, from other people and from the true Self...The urgent need to escape from the profound insecurity of this situation gives rise, when unchecked, to insatiable desires for pleasure, possession, and power...
"The particular consequences of original sin include all the self-serving habits that have been woven into our personality from the time we were conceived; all the emotional damage that has come from our early environment and upbringing; all the harm that other people have done to us knowingly or unknowlingly at an age when we could not defend ourselves; and the methods we acquired--many of them now unconscious--to ward off the pain of unbearable situations.
"This constellation of prerational reactions is the foundation of the false self..."
This seems to me a very clear and compassionate explanation, an explanation that grew out of no little understanding of human nature. I find very little of that in the Church in this area, to be honest--compassion or understanding either one. Churches around here seem to me to be very concerned with conveying "Truth"--with a hammer, if need be. But compassion IS part of Truth. Truth is incomplete without it. Anyone with understanding (real discernment) knows that.
I need a break from attending church, to be honest. I have very little trouble seeing hurting people AS hurting people except when they're in positions of self-satisfied authority in the church. (And self-satisfaction is, in a big way, one of those human coping mechanisms mentioned above--no one gets to be exempt from deserving compassion.)
It is very hard to love everyone. It hurts, because the people you love are hurting other people you love. No wonder so few of us manage to live consistently from our True Selves.
I've used the term "false self" for some time now, even mentioning it here on Quotidian Light. It isn't an official term I'd found anywhere, but a simply a term I use in my own mind to describe the internal turmoil and tussle with habits and faulty/damaging thinking that I know are sheer nonsense but that have their sharp little talons sunken deep into my life nonetheless. Growing up, I was taught that all human beings are inherently bad, evil, from birth, a concept my teachers called "original sin." I may offend or horrify my more Calvinistic friends by saying so, but I don't swallow it. I didn't when I was a child (although eventually I learned to quit arguing with my teachers, since it only seemed to upset them), and I don't now. Traditional definition of "original sin" or no, however, it's fairly self-evident that human beings aren't all sunshine and sweetness by a long shot, either. We're pretty messed up, I'll be the first to admit.
Last week I was reading Thomas Keating's Open Mind Open Heart, a book on centering prayer and the contemplative dimension of the gospel, and I had to restrain myself from leaping to my feet and running around the room singing, "Yes!Yes!Yes!Yes!Yes!" Here are some excerpts of what struck me so forcibly:
"The term 'original sin' is a way of describing the human condition, which is the universal experience of coming to full reflective self-consciousness without the certitude of personal union with God. ..
"Original sin is not the result of personal wrongdoing on our part. Still, it causes a pervasive feeling of alienation from God, from other people and from the true Self...The urgent need to escape from the profound insecurity of this situation gives rise, when unchecked, to insatiable desires for pleasure, possession, and power...
"The particular consequences of original sin include all the self-serving habits that have been woven into our personality from the time we were conceived; all the emotional damage that has come from our early environment and upbringing; all the harm that other people have done to us knowingly or unknowlingly at an age when we could not defend ourselves; and the methods we acquired--many of them now unconscious--to ward off the pain of unbearable situations.
"This constellation of prerational reactions is the foundation of the false self..."
This seems to me a very clear and compassionate explanation, an explanation that grew out of no little understanding of human nature. I find very little of that in the Church in this area, to be honest--compassion or understanding either one. Churches around here seem to me to be very concerned with conveying "Truth"--with a hammer, if need be. But compassion IS part of Truth. Truth is incomplete without it. Anyone with understanding (real discernment) knows that.
I need a break from attending church, to be honest. I have very little trouble seeing hurting people AS hurting people except when they're in positions of self-satisfied authority in the church. (And self-satisfaction is, in a big way, one of those human coping mechanisms mentioned above--no one gets to be exempt from deserving compassion.)
It is very hard to love everyone. It hurts, because the people you love are hurting other people you love. No wonder so few of us manage to live consistently from our True Selves.
Newscast of Interest
Last night KOLR 10, a news crew out of Springfield, came and taped parts of the "Laura's Memories" rehearsal. The result should air at 10:00 p.m. this evening, we were told. Of course, all of us will be in rehearsal, but if any of you in the area are interested, you can check it out. If any of it goes on their website, I'll add a link later.
Slacking Off and The Teeming Brain
I've not been blogging. I've not been doing much of anything lately, it seems some days. Other days I think I've done far too much. We went to the Renaissance faire. It was lovely. My mother, older daughter and I hit a couple of fabric stores having sales and I bought roughly $350 worth of costume patterns for about $30 the same week. My sister had The Nephew, and since they've been back home, I've visited them to help with laundry (a matter of grave consideration and befuddlement for Great Scott and my sister's husband, evidently). I've made a costume for the Little House play and altered and/or repaired several more. I've been running the music, also, for rehearsals of the same. I've made earrings, a necklace and embossed stationery. A friend and I ate ice cream and haunted an antique store one afternoon, where I found a calligraphy pen with 3 tips in reasonably good shape for a good deal. I have slept late. I've bled in a shoe. I've been reading David Eddings' Elenium and Tamuli series and finding them to be very light reading, indeed--exactly what's been needed when the temperature is pushing into the high nineties and the brain is operating through a fog of heat and humidity only slightly eased by ice water and fans.
In short, I've really been doing a whole lot of not much.
Other people I know have not been slacking off, however. In fact, at least one of our friends has been keeping quite disgustingly busy, and being the blog material moocher I am, I'll write about him.
Matt Cardin is a high school English teacher, an increasingly successful horror writer, a pianist of considerable skill, and along with his lovely wife, Teresa, one of our favorite dinner guests. Dinner with Matt and Teresa is never boring, although I will admit I've occasionally felt a little lost when Great Scott and Mr. Cardin delve deeply into philosphical, cultural and even some literary areas. I am no dummy, but Scott and Matt can outdiscuss and outquote me any day. I listen as long as I can, and then I start taking notes--usually titles and author names to look up later. I hardly ever do, but it makes me feel smarter to be sitting there taking notes instead of letting my eyes glaze over.
Matt began his blogging excursions with Confessions of a Conflicted Cultural Skeptic , but more recently has started a new blog, The Teeming Brain, which I heartily recommend for any readers who have an interest in philosophy, horror writing, and topics with a mystical/spiritual slant. A couple of interesting posts up right now tackle the subject of angels and Lovecraftian bumperstickers. Drop by and tell Matt hello.
In short, I've really been doing a whole lot of not much.
Other people I know have not been slacking off, however. In fact, at least one of our friends has been keeping quite disgustingly busy, and being the blog material moocher I am, I'll write about him.
Matt Cardin is a high school English teacher, an increasingly successful horror writer, a pianist of considerable skill, and along with his lovely wife, Teresa, one of our favorite dinner guests. Dinner with Matt and Teresa is never boring, although I will admit I've occasionally felt a little lost when Great Scott and Mr. Cardin delve deeply into philosphical, cultural and even some literary areas. I am no dummy, but Scott and Matt can outdiscuss and outquote me any day. I listen as long as I can, and then I start taking notes--usually titles and author names to look up later. I hardly ever do, but it makes me feel smarter to be sitting there taking notes instead of letting my eyes glaze over.
Matt began his blogging excursions with Confessions of a Conflicted Cultural Skeptic , but more recently has started a new blog, The Teeming Brain, which I heartily recommend for any readers who have an interest in philosophy, horror writing, and topics with a mystical/spiritual slant. A couple of interesting posts up right now tackle the subject of angels and Lovecraftian bumperstickers. Drop by and tell Matt hello.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Friday Quote: 10 Kinds of People
"When you get right down to it, there are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who know binary and those who don't."
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Arrival
The Nephew arrived today at 1:45 p.m!! The younger niece (22 months today) is staying with us for a couple of days until her mama (my sister) gets back home. We will take her to meet her new baby brother tomorrow.
There is much rejoicing.
There is much rejoicing.
Monday, June 26, 2006
White Hart Renaissance Faire
We live in the middle of a field. Literally. When our landlord runs cattle here, we have to open and shut a heavy metal gate where our lane meets the highway to leave or enter the field, as well as opening and shutting the single-wire electrified gate at the entrance to our yard. If we forget to shut the gate at the highway, the cattle can wander out and cause problems with traffic. If we forget to fasten the electric strand at the yard, we can end up with cattle walking through the lawn and eating the flowers. Like the 150 heifers that came visiting up close and personal a couple of years ago. The 150 heifers whose hoofprints still make it hard to push a mower over the grass.
Because we live in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere, we hardly expected to find ourselves right next door to a Renaissance festival. Yes. White Hart Renaissance Faire occupies the field just catty-cornered across the highway from us. Yesterday morning I went out to check the live trap for groundhogs (cute, but destructive little critters) and was regaled with bagpipe music floating over the fescue. We could hear great rounds of cheers sporadically throughout the weekend, and from our front lawn, we could see, albeit at some distance, jousting. Yes. I said jousting. With real horses. In fancy horse dresses. We can even hear resounding WHACKs from lances and swords.
I have a weakness for Ren fests. For years I dated a fellow who worked the one near Kansas City, and I used to spend weekends there wandering around in the ankle length green wool cloak and black suede, fringed boots that I wore for everyday back home. If I got tired, I just found a quiet corner backstage somewhere and settled in for a nap or to eat an apple and read the ever-present book. The boyfriend was busy treading the boards and chasing Ren wenches, and I loved every moment of those dusty, sunlight dappled, autumn days wandering alone amid the shops and street actors, bright ribbons and jingling bells and coins all around me. (Great Scott, reading the draft of this post, requests that I make certain to mention that HE was not the Ren fest boyfriend, and I shall add, "Indeed, not!")
The girls are dying to go, of course. Great Scott is making Noises of Interest in acquiring a kilt for future years of attendance, should the White Hart Ren Faire succeed, as we hope it does. If we go this year, I'll try to post some pictures. If anyone reading this decides to go, let us know, and we'll meet you on the porch with a glass of cold peppermint tea, should you care to drop by.
Because we live in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere, we hardly expected to find ourselves right next door to a Renaissance festival. Yes. White Hart Renaissance Faire occupies the field just catty-cornered across the highway from us. Yesterday morning I went out to check the live trap for groundhogs (cute, but destructive little critters) and was regaled with bagpipe music floating over the fescue. We could hear great rounds of cheers sporadically throughout the weekend, and from our front lawn, we could see, albeit at some distance, jousting. Yes. I said jousting. With real horses. In fancy horse dresses. We can even hear resounding WHACKs from lances and swords.
I have a weakness for Ren fests. For years I dated a fellow who worked the one near Kansas City, and I used to spend weekends there wandering around in the ankle length green wool cloak and black suede, fringed boots that I wore for everyday back home. If I got tired, I just found a quiet corner backstage somewhere and settled in for a nap or to eat an apple and read the ever-present book. The boyfriend was busy treading the boards and chasing Ren wenches, and I loved every moment of those dusty, sunlight dappled, autumn days wandering alone amid the shops and street actors, bright ribbons and jingling bells and coins all around me. (Great Scott, reading the draft of this post, requests that I make certain to mention that HE was not the Ren fest boyfriend, and I shall add, "Indeed, not!")
The girls are dying to go, of course. Great Scott is making Noises of Interest in acquiring a kilt for future years of attendance, should the White Hart Ren Faire succeed, as we hope it does. If we go this year, I'll try to post some pictures. If anyone reading this decides to go, let us know, and we'll meet you on the porch with a glass of cold peppermint tea, should you care to drop by.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Today There Is Much Rejoicing: New Poet Laureate
Last night I received a note from an acquaintance on a message board I sometimes visit, a note that made me want to be so undignified as to get up and dance around the room. I couldn't wait until Great Scott got home to share the news with him.
"Guess what?!" I chirped as he came trudging down the walk at 9:30 after a long day.
"Donald Hall is our next poet laureate," he replied with a grin. (He knows me so well.)
You can read more about Don Hall on NPR's website. I've a great deal of respect for Hall for a number of reasons, perhaps the chief of which is that the man seems to know how to live a life and has done his best to live a good one. In a world of academic posing and posturing, that means a lot.
"Guess what?!" I chirped as he came trudging down the walk at 9:30 after a long day.
"Donald Hall is our next poet laureate," he replied with a grin. (He knows me so well.)
You can read more about Don Hall on NPR's website. I've a great deal of respect for Hall for a number of reasons, perhaps the chief of which is that the man seems to know how to live a life and has done his best to live a good one. In a world of academic posing and posturing, that means a lot.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
A Promised Post—for Dale
I do not often post prayer requests here, but I’m about to make what I feel is a worthwhile exception.
Last Sunday my dad picked up and brought to church a young man named Dale who was traveling on foot (and by accepting any offers of rides he could get) from Canada to Florida to see his mother who is dying of lung cancer. He asked for prayers that she would still be alive when he got there and that she would be open to hearing what he was traveling so far to tell her.
This is all I know about Dale, but I know I have readers from Canada all the way to Florida, most or all of whom are praying people. Would you do this for Dale and for his mom?
Last Sunday my dad picked up and brought to church a young man named Dale who was traveling on foot (and by accepting any offers of rides he could get) from Canada to Florida to see his mother who is dying of lung cancer. He asked for prayers that she would still be alive when he got there and that she would be open to hearing what he was traveling so far to tell her.
This is all I know about Dale, but I know I have readers from Canada all the way to Florida, most or all of whom are praying people. Would you do this for Dale and for his mom?
Limited Internet Access Coming Up
My sister was told today that her baby (The Nephew), who is due July 6th, is unlikely to wait until then to make his debut. The doctor’s request to her was to do as little as possible to see if she might make it into next week, as a matter of fact.
Since I am the official Niece-Sitter for the event, I need to be off the phone and available. Which, since we’re on dial-up connection, means staying off the internet as well. So email-checking and blogging may be at a premium for the next week or so, although for the very best of reasons.
Since I am the official Niece-Sitter for the event, I need to be off the phone and available. Which, since we’re on dial-up connection, means staying off the internet as well. So email-checking and blogging may be at a premium for the next week or so, although for the very best of reasons.
Monday, June 12, 2006
"Laura's Memories"--Show Times
For those of you who have asked or are curious, here are the showtimes for the Ozark Mountain Players 2006 production of "Laura's Memories", a musical based on the life and Little House books of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Fridays and Saturdays
July 21 & 22
July 28 & 29
August 4 & 5
August 11 & 12
September 15 & 16
That last weekend coincides with Mansfield's yearly Wilder Day festivities--parade, craft booths, beard and baking contests, games on the town square, all that fun stuff and more.
Location is Mansfield, Missouri. The show begins at 8:00 p.m. at the outdoor theater in the park by the schoolhouse. Usually there is some kind of local musical entertainment before the show and during intermission. A few years someone has even played Pa's fiddle (yes, the Fiddle), although I don't know if they're doing that this year. If you come, be sure to stop by the stage and say hello.
All summer during the daytime, Laura and Almanzo's farm, Rocky Ridge, is open and well worth visiting. The museum there is full of the Ingalls and Wilder families' belongings, and guided tours are available for both the house Almanzo built for Laura and the home Rose Wilder Lane (their daughter) built for them. You can learn lots of fascinating little tidbits about Laura and Almanzo's life together that were never recorded in her books on these tours, and admission for both of them are included in the price of the museum tickets. This year a new walking path through the woods between the houses is open, as well.
Fridays and Saturdays
July 21 & 22
July 28 & 29
August 4 & 5
August 11 & 12
September 15 & 16
That last weekend coincides with Mansfield's yearly Wilder Day festivities--parade, craft booths, beard and baking contests, games on the town square, all that fun stuff and more.
Location is Mansfield, Missouri. The show begins at 8:00 p.m. at the outdoor theater in the park by the schoolhouse. Usually there is some kind of local musical entertainment before the show and during intermission. A few years someone has even played Pa's fiddle (yes, the Fiddle), although I don't know if they're doing that this year. If you come, be sure to stop by the stage and say hello.
All summer during the daytime, Laura and Almanzo's farm, Rocky Ridge, is open and well worth visiting. The museum there is full of the Ingalls and Wilder families' belongings, and guided tours are available for both the house Almanzo built for Laura and the home Rose Wilder Lane (their daughter) built for them. You can learn lots of fascinating little tidbits about Laura and Almanzo's life together that were never recorded in her books on these tours, and admission for both of them are included in the price of the museum tickets. This year a new walking path through the woods between the houses is open, as well.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Friday Quote: On Artists
"When artists discover as children that they have inappropriate responses to events around them, they also find, as they learn to trust those responses, that these oddities are what constitute their value to others."
--Kathleen Norris
The Cloister Walk
(Speaking here of the objective observer part of the artistic self that often sits back and cooly watches, evaluating the artistic potential in even the most horrible moments despite the artist's intent or desire.)
--Kathleen Norris
The Cloister Walk
(Speaking here of the objective observer part of the artistic self that often sits back and cooly watches, evaluating the artistic potential in even the most horrible moments despite the artist's intent or desire.)
Procrastination Aids: Death Predictions
Yes, this is hokey, and yes, it's morbid, and yes, I stole it (from Teri). But it's also entertaining, as I'll explain in a minute. Here's mine:
"Lucinda: At age 93, a tiger will maul you. Don't ask why, but you will be in a Burmese jungle."
Now, it's highly intriguing, wouldn't you say, the thought of being mauled by a ninety-three year-old tiger?
"Lucinda: At age 93, a tiger will maul you. Don't ask why, but you will be in a Burmese jungle."
Now, it's highly intriguing, wouldn't you say, the thought of being mauled by a ninety-three year-old tiger?
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
The Play's the Thing
Last year about this time I wrote about the girls and their involvement in the Laura Ingalls Wilder play. Lo, the time has come again.
This year our older daughter is playing Mary in three scenes instead of one, and the younger daughter is Carrie in one of these with her sister. The girls were tired after staying up past midnight playing with their cousin last night, and I was braced for an emotional overload at rehearsal if they didn't catch on as quickly as they sometimes expect themselves to, but all went smoothly. Neither seemed phased at all by the new scenes, and both were cheerful on the way home. A rare and wondrous occasion to be sure.
I've mentioned before that my mother has done the costuming for Ozark Mountain Players for the last thirteen years. She is a veritable creative genius with fabrics, laces, patterns and thread, and she can match colors and costume cut with actors' bodily ecccentricities in such a way as to hide or bring out just about any physical characteristic you'd care to name. I do not exaggerate. However organizational skills aren't her forte. For thirteen years I've given an ear to her complaints and anxieties about keeping track of OMP's costumes, and last year was probably the worst year yet, resulting in the OMP officers requesting a complete cataloging of the entire costume inventory. That would be, yes, thirteen years worth. From a young age I have been, by her own admission, my mother's organizer. Now I have become OMP's as well and am currently photographing and recording costumes and putting the information on sign in/sign out sheets that require signatures and phone numbers. Mom is relieved. OMP is happy, and, honestly, I'm having quite a bit of fun.
The costume work was the only work I'd anticipated this year for OMP, besides sound effects and taking notes for Pat (the musical director) in the pit during dress rehearsals and performances. It's gotten a lot more complicated than that, however, and I found myself tonight being introduced to the cast as the new assistant director. This is what happens if you don't put on a costume and hit the boards volontarily. Pat, who plays all the music for the show herself, will be out of state on opening night, and she's asked me to run it via a pre-recorded CD. I'm also supposed to keep track of who will need understudies for which nights and let our good co-directors know ahead of time. And, of course, I get my favorite job from last year back as well: beckoning misbehaving underage cast members to join me in the pit. The eschatological implications are entirely too good to overlook.
This year our older daughter is playing Mary in three scenes instead of one, and the younger daughter is Carrie in one of these with her sister. The girls were tired after staying up past midnight playing with their cousin last night, and I was braced for an emotional overload at rehearsal if they didn't catch on as quickly as they sometimes expect themselves to, but all went smoothly. Neither seemed phased at all by the new scenes, and both were cheerful on the way home. A rare and wondrous occasion to be sure.
I've mentioned before that my mother has done the costuming for Ozark Mountain Players for the last thirteen years. She is a veritable creative genius with fabrics, laces, patterns and thread, and she can match colors and costume cut with actors' bodily ecccentricities in such a way as to hide or bring out just about any physical characteristic you'd care to name. I do not exaggerate. However organizational skills aren't her forte. For thirteen years I've given an ear to her complaints and anxieties about keeping track of OMP's costumes, and last year was probably the worst year yet, resulting in the OMP officers requesting a complete cataloging of the entire costume inventory. That would be, yes, thirteen years worth. From a young age I have been, by her own admission, my mother's organizer. Now I have become OMP's as well and am currently photographing and recording costumes and putting the information on sign in/sign out sheets that require signatures and phone numbers. Mom is relieved. OMP is happy, and, honestly, I'm having quite a bit of fun.
The costume work was the only work I'd anticipated this year for OMP, besides sound effects and taking notes for Pat (the musical director) in the pit during dress rehearsals and performances. It's gotten a lot more complicated than that, however, and I found myself tonight being introduced to the cast as the new assistant director. This is what happens if you don't put on a costume and hit the boards volontarily. Pat, who plays all the music for the show herself, will be out of state on opening night, and she's asked me to run it via a pre-recorded CD. I'm also supposed to keep track of who will need understudies for which nights and let our good co-directors know ahead of time. And, of course, I get my favorite job from last year back as well: beckoning misbehaving underage cast members to join me in the pit. The eschatological implications are entirely too good to overlook.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Friday Quote: On Serving the Work
"Your goal is to make the book as good a book as you can possibly write at this stage in your life. And you don't stop until you have done that, and when you have done that, it's a mistake to play around with it because then you'll just succeed in ruining it.
"You begin to sense the point at which you have done as much revising as you can do. It's not exactly right, you haven't served it as well as it should be served, but that's as far as you can go."
--Madeleine L'Engle
from {Herself}
It's hard to let go, to turn your back on something--a poem, a painting, a performance, a position, a relationship--when you know you've not served it as well as it should have been served, when you know that you could (an abstract and non-specific could) have done better. Unfortunately we operate in a very concrete and specific world in which our efforts are wildly variant in their effectiveness. Time of day, the effects of our social contacts, our physical health, broken shoestrings, lost keys and an endless plethora of other physical and emotional factors all put our coulds in a state of wild flux. Our best today was not our best yesterday and will likely not be our best tomorrow. Accepting that is hard. It requires admitting one is human and fallable, and for some of us this is much harder an admission to make to ourselves than to anyone else. Vulnerability usually is.
"You begin to sense the point at which you have done as much revising as you can do. It's not exactly right, you haven't served it as well as it should be served, but that's as far as you can go."
--Madeleine L'Engle
from {Herself}
It's hard to let go, to turn your back on something--a poem, a painting, a performance, a position, a relationship--when you know you've not served it as well as it should have been served, when you know that you could (an abstract and non-specific could) have done better. Unfortunately we operate in a very concrete and specific world in which our efforts are wildly variant in their effectiveness. Time of day, the effects of our social contacts, our physical health, broken shoestrings, lost keys and an endless plethora of other physical and emotional factors all put our coulds in a state of wild flux. Our best today was not our best yesterday and will likely not be our best tomorrow. Accepting that is hard. It requires admitting one is human and fallable, and for some of us this is much harder an admission to make to ourselves than to anyone else. Vulnerability usually is.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Gifts
May and June are happenin’ months for our family. Lots of birthdays and anniversaries and celebrations. Sometimes they sneak up on me so fast that I find myself empty-handed on gift-giving occasions. This month Great Scott’s birthday falls on the day before Father’s Day, so loot is imperative. Good loot. Lots of loot. He’s worth it, I’ve found it, and what’s more, I actually got it ordered early enough that it’s already arriving! I’ll even have time to wrap it!
While this may not sound exciting enough to you to warrant the use of exclamation points, trust me; in this household it is. If the gift gets given within two weeks of the occasion, it’s on time.
Great Scott and I have a long history of gift giving...experiences. From our first Christmas when he gave me lingerie and upon seeing me in it immediately said, “Oh, Hon, I’m so sorry. I won’t do that again,” to the Valentine’s Day when I gave him a cross-stitched sampler instead of massive amounts of chocolate (Oh, Hon, I’m so sorry. I won’t do that again), our gifting has never been boring. Nor has it been particular about appearance. For a few years Great Scott’s chosen method of wrapping a gift consisted of a Stuff-Mart bag. When I noted that this was not the most inspiring way to give a gift, he wrapped the next one completely in duct tape, and was terribly proud of it. For my own part, I’ve been guilty of making him close his eyes and simply laying his present on his lap, Philistine that I am.
We’ve progressed to gift bags, now, like civilized people, and for the most part find this satisfactory. (At least I find it satisfactory--much more so than duct tape--although Great Scott may feel creatively hampered.) As for gift selection, we’re getting better. No more bustier nightwear or cutesy cross-stitch. We’ve learned to go for the eclectic, the slightly off-kilter, the quirky, even the downright bizarre, from the Jane Austin action figure to The Pop-Up Book of Phobias.
Marriage is work, some of it excruciatingly painful, some of it as bland and flavorless as a chalk shake. We’ve been through too much to come anywhere near denying this. But here is one of the small, intense pleasures resulting from years of stubborn commitment: knowing each other--knowing each other well enough to navigate even the treacherous passage of Choosing a Gift. No small gift in itself.
Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to go make a lemon meringue pie for Great Scott in appreciation for the belated Mother’s Day gift that arrived in the mail yesterday:
While this may not sound exciting enough to you to warrant the use of exclamation points, trust me; in this household it is. If the gift gets given within two weeks of the occasion, it’s on time.
Great Scott and I have a long history of gift giving...experiences. From our first Christmas when he gave me lingerie and upon seeing me in it immediately said, “Oh, Hon, I’m so sorry. I won’t do that again,” to the Valentine’s Day when I gave him a cross-stitched sampler instead of massive amounts of chocolate (Oh, Hon, I’m so sorry. I won’t do that again), our gifting has never been boring. Nor has it been particular about appearance. For a few years Great Scott’s chosen method of wrapping a gift consisted of a Stuff-Mart bag. When I noted that this was not the most inspiring way to give a gift, he wrapped the next one completely in duct tape, and was terribly proud of it. For my own part, I’ve been guilty of making him close his eyes and simply laying his present on his lap, Philistine that I am.
We’ve progressed to gift bags, now, like civilized people, and for the most part find this satisfactory. (At least I find it satisfactory--much more so than duct tape--although Great Scott may feel creatively hampered.) As for gift selection, we’re getting better. No more bustier nightwear or cutesy cross-stitch. We’ve learned to go for the eclectic, the slightly off-kilter, the quirky, even the downright bizarre, from the Jane Austin action figure to The Pop-Up Book of Phobias.
Marriage is work, some of it excruciatingly painful, some of it as bland and flavorless as a chalk shake. We’ve been through too much to come anywhere near denying this. But here is one of the small, intense pleasures resulting from years of stubborn commitment: knowing each other--knowing each other well enough to navigate even the treacherous passage of Choosing a Gift. No small gift in itself.
Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to go make a lemon meringue pie for Great Scott in appreciation for the belated Mother’s Day gift that arrived in the mail yesterday:
Friday, May 26, 2006
Procrastination Aids: Poetic Form
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Compliments of Jennifer.
Friday, May 19, 2006
Friday Quote: On Meaning Inherent in Things
Things are saturated with significance. Meaning does not have to be injected into a story like juice injected into a cooked turkey. Things themselves are translucent with meaning, like paper translucent from grease. In poor houses on the frontier where people couldn't afford glass, the windows were paper rubbed with fat. The light streamed in, as did the winter cold and the summer heat, and everything was seen in that light, the light of the paper window, just the way that now, when we think of people living with great poverty and endurance, all we need to do is imagine a paper window: meaning glows in the thing.
...Meaning is trapped in the what of things. Meaning is held in the web of things like honey held in a comb, or a soap film held in a hoop, or a bundle of the sun's radiant energy held in the very green of chlorophyll. There is a physics of significance.
---Bonnie Friedman
in Writing Past Dark
...Meaning is trapped in the what of things. Meaning is held in the web of things like honey held in a comb, or a soap film held in a hoop, or a bundle of the sun's radiant energy held in the very green of chlorophyll. There is a physics of significance.
---Bonnie Friedman
in Writing Past Dark
The Vacuum Saga
Last year to celebrate our tax refund, I bought a new vacuum. Actually, I took our old, non-working vaccum into a shop to have it fixed and was accosted by Sid the Vacuum Salesman, who also owns the shop. Sid's Method of Operation is to look at one's old vacuum while tsking and then to tell one regretfully what a piece of worthless junk it is and why one should buy a Riccar vacuum. I have seen him in action with several customers, pushing 30 pound vacuums on little old ladies who came in to get a lightweight floor sweeper to accomodate their arthritis. Sid likes to interrupt; he doesn't like eye contact; and he tries to speak very fast, which is difficult because he stutters. Now, I don't begrudge Sid his stutter at all. What I DO object to is interruption and condescension, both of which Sid does in abundance. (Sometime I shall tell The Tale of the Sewing Machine Repair, too. But I digress and will begin to snarl.) After hearing Sid's snide comments about our old vacuum and his sung praises of the Riccar vacuum he was so determined to sell me, I shook him off and went home to do a little Web research. Lo and behold, the Riccar had excellent, excellent consumer reviews. Somewhat grudgingly, I went back and purchased one.
This year I took the still perfectly performing Riccar in for its free yearly maintenance, as prescribed by the service policy in the owner's manual. Sid wasn't in, but the young lady in the shop said she'd have it ready for me in 30 minutes. I was relieved. Marshfield is an hour's worth of driving (round trip) from our house, and with gas prices, I really wasn't wanting to have to leave it and come back another day. I poked around in the scrapbooking shop next door for 30 minutes, went back to Sid's, picked up the vacuum and returned home. The next time I attempted to use it, I discovered the beater bar no longer worked at all, and the floor/carpeting switch was not only jammed but had a huge gouge. I was not a happy camper.
I returned to the shop asking to talk to Sid and was told he wasn't in. I went home muttering under my breath. I waited a couple of days and called. I was told when he would be in. I returned. He was absent. I returned home again, breathing out fiery and intricate plots for using the beater bar in ways that would most certainly void the warranty. When the inner conflagration died down enough that my nostrils were merely wisping bits of smoke, I called once more and was assured that Sid was always in on Saturdays. I laid my plans accordingly.
You must understand that I am not a person who likes conflict. I don't like being angry with people. I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to damage relationships. I wanted to strangle Sid and his shopgirl with the powercord, yes, but I wanted to do it in a NICE way, mind you, a way that would assure their thinking well of me while they rubbed the scars on their throats, and above all, a way that would insure my being able to continue thinking well of myself. (I am not always a very nice person. Yes, I know this. What I do not understand is why that can be so satisfying.) Knowing I was torn between wanting to be kind and wanting to flay Sid alive with onboard attachments, I prayed on the half hour trip to the shop, prayed that the confrontation would be calm, that I would not lose my temper (because I am unable to speak at ALL when I become extremely angry--I cry, which considerably diminishes one's ability to be intimidating), and that I would come home with a fixed vacuum cleaner and not have to make another trip.
That evening when I returned home, I was able to write the following in my journal.
This year I took the still perfectly performing Riccar in for its free yearly maintenance, as prescribed by the service policy in the owner's manual. Sid wasn't in, but the young lady in the shop said she'd have it ready for me in 30 minutes. I was relieved. Marshfield is an hour's worth of driving (round trip) from our house, and with gas prices, I really wasn't wanting to have to leave it and come back another day. I poked around in the scrapbooking shop next door for 30 minutes, went back to Sid's, picked up the vacuum and returned home. The next time I attempted to use it, I discovered the beater bar no longer worked at all, and the floor/carpeting switch was not only jammed but had a huge gouge. I was not a happy camper.
I returned to the shop asking to talk to Sid and was told he wasn't in. I went home muttering under my breath. I waited a couple of days and called. I was told when he would be in. I returned. He was absent. I returned home again, breathing out fiery and intricate plots for using the beater bar in ways that would most certainly void the warranty. When the inner conflagration died down enough that my nostrils were merely wisping bits of smoke, I called once more and was assured that Sid was always in on Saturdays. I laid my plans accordingly.
You must understand that I am not a person who likes conflict. I don't like being angry with people. I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to damage relationships. I wanted to strangle Sid and his shopgirl with the powercord, yes, but I wanted to do it in a NICE way, mind you, a way that would assure their thinking well of me while they rubbed the scars on their throats, and above all, a way that would insure my being able to continue thinking well of myself. (I am not always a very nice person. Yes, I know this. What I do not understand is why that can be so satisfying.) Knowing I was torn between wanting to be kind and wanting to flay Sid alive with onboard attachments, I prayed on the half hour trip to the shop, prayed that the confrontation would be calm, that I would not lose my temper (because I am unable to speak at ALL when I become extremely angry--I cry, which considerably diminishes one's ability to be intimidating), and that I would come home with a fixed vacuum cleaner and not have to make another trip.
That evening when I returned home, I was able to write the following in my journal.
Today the vacuum saga came to a most satisfactory close. I took the Riccar in and found the shop crowded, Sid "helping" another woman, telling her what was wrong with her vacuum and doing his darnedest to sell her a Riccar. She looked up at me and my vacuum (which had "Riccar" emblazoned across its front), smiled and asked, "Is that a Riccar that you have?"
"Yes it is," I replied quietly.
She walked over to me to look at both my vacuum and the other Riccars on display, over which Sid was still making enthusiastic and encouraging salesman noises.
"And do you like it?"
"I do," I answered, and seeing the heavens open and the perfect opportunity descending from the skies, I took it. "I love this vacuum very much," I said earnestly. "It does a very good job, an excellent job." I let woe cloud my face, dropped my eyes and shook my head regretfully, "The problem I've had is with the service."
There was a beat of dead silence, during which the lady's eyes widened first with concern and then with a glint of amusement as she turned to Sid, her eyebrows raised. "Oh, really?" she asked, still smiling.
Sid was at my side in a moment and had my Riccar upside down against the counter with a screwdriver opening it up before I could finish answering his very courteous questions about what the problem had been. He had it fixed and ready to go in 3 minutes.
I feel a little guilty about the satisfaction and amusement I took (and am continuing to take) from Sid's tight spot there in the shop. Not nearly guilty enough, most likely, though, as it isn't enough to keep me from enjoying it in remembrance. Upon my arrival home and the hearing of the tale, Great Scott said, his grin reminiscent of Alice's Chesire Cat, "You are a wickie, wickie woman!" The fact that this was uttered with obvious admiration did nothing to shame me, I have to admit.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
You Know You Live in the Ozarks When...
1. Your twelve year-old daughter comes home from Safety Day at school with a package of goodies that contain ear plugs (for using when shooting a gun or running heavy farm machinery), scads of fliers on West Nile Virus, brochures from a farmers' life insurance company and a Buck knife catalogue.
2. Regardless of how hard you work to correct her, your nine year-old pronounces "hundred" as "hunnerd."
3. The 'possums walk back and forth under the porch swing late at night while you're sitting out enjoying the quiet. If you put out cat food, you can pet them.
4. Your elderly neighbor shows up asking if you'd like a turkey if he gets one this season, and then tells you if he sees one out of season, he'll bring that by, too.
5. He does this because you stopped last month to see if you could help him get his wayward cow back in the field (and off the road), and he's appreciative.
6. Rain falls steadily in your front yard, but the sky in your back yard is perfectly clear.
7. You begin finding ticks in February and March.
8. You are captured in conversation with an intense kindergartener who tells you more about running a hog operation than most adults could ever begin to imagine. And much more than you really wanted to know.
9. Your grandmother and your father both kept skunks as pets when they were kids.
10. Every morning when you open your eyes and look out the window, you are certain there is no more beautiful place on earth.
2. Regardless of how hard you work to correct her, your nine year-old pronounces "hundred" as "hunnerd."
3. The 'possums walk back and forth under the porch swing late at night while you're sitting out enjoying the quiet. If you put out cat food, you can pet them.
4. Your elderly neighbor shows up asking if you'd like a turkey if he gets one this season, and then tells you if he sees one out of season, he'll bring that by, too.
5. He does this because you stopped last month to see if you could help him get his wayward cow back in the field (and off the road), and he's appreciative.
6. Rain falls steadily in your front yard, but the sky in your back yard is perfectly clear.
7. You begin finding ticks in February and March.
8. You are captured in conversation with an intense kindergartener who tells you more about running a hog operation than most adults could ever begin to imagine. And much more than you really wanted to know.
9. Your grandmother and your father both kept skunks as pets when they were kids.
10. Every morning when you open your eyes and look out the window, you are certain there is no more beautiful place on earth.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Mother's Day Gift
Yes. It is indeed a Jane Austin action figure. I am blessed with the best family ever.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Mothering
Everybody knows that a good mother gives her children a feeling of trust and stability. She is their earth. She is the one they can count on for the things that matter most of all. She is their food and their bed and the extra blanket when it grows cold in the night; she is their warmth and their health and their shelter; she is the one they want to be near when they cry. She is the only person in the whole world in a whole lifetime who can be these things to her children. There is no substitute for her. Somehow even her clothes feel different to her children's hands from anybody else's clothes. Only to touch her skirt or her sleeve makes a troubled child feel better.
---Katharine Butler Hathaway
I do not remember ever feeling this way about my mother. Her personality and mine were so distinctly different that I rarely, if ever, felt the blissful connection between mother and child that is so highly lauded in our society. She loved ruffles and ribbons and layers of lace; I abhorred scratchy, itchy, dresses. She was highly emotional and very expressive; I was highly reflective and extremely reserved. She dressed me in bright red as often as possible; I loved blues and greens. She seemed to live for church activities and get-togethers; I despised Vacation Bible School. She went to nearly every school activity in which I was ever involved; I craved my own space. In short, she was (and is) an extravert's extravert, and I am a dyed in the wool introvert. The things that to her were the epitome of comfort and joy were nothing short of trial and torment to me, and our relationship was considerably rocky for a long time because of it. There were other rather pronounced difficulties, oh yes. Still, even those were exacerbated by her natural affinity for living in the outer world and my rather plain-spoken distain for it, by my bone-deep need to dwell first in the depths of a quiet inner world and (what seemed to me) her oblivion and utter disregard for that at all. For years she kept battering away at the walls I'd purposely built to keep her at a "safe" distance, never really seeming to understand that her efforts only necessitated thicker walls. For years I battled anger, bitterness and, yes, hatred--of her and myself both--as well as guilt that she would never be the mother I was sure I'd needed, and I could never be the daughter she wanted.
I forswore motherhood altogether by the time I was eleven or twelve and felt no small relief in doing so. Already by then I was investing much of my identity in my thought life and academic achievements and interests. No children would mean more time to read, more time to devote to writing. Also, already struggling with depression, I reasoned my decision would spare whatever children I might have had, from life itself, which I considered to be very little short of misery incarnate. My mind was made up. My life would be my own, and I would not use it to create and be part of the tearing apart of someone else's.
Then I met Great Scott, and somehow, I ended up with two daughters who think I am the be-all, end-all of motherhood, an unlikely and unlooked-for grace, for certain.
Our twelve year-old gave me a hand written card this morning thanking me for being there for her "in troubled times" (she's beginning to hit the high hormone stage, and we spent some time drying tears after bedtime last night), and our newly nine year-old's card expressed her hope to someday "be like" me (a thought that causes sheer terror to rise in my throat, I assure you). I know that adolescence may bring more troubled times. Already the mothers of my older daughter's friends compare notes about difficult attitudes and increasing relational struggles. I'm bracing myself, but so far I'm nothing but touched and humbled by our girl's (by both our girls') love and regard, a love and regard for and in a relationship with which I've had no former experience and which, in truth, I could never deserve.
And my relationship with my own mother now? Improved. No bitterness; no hatred. I learned to express and enforce some of the boundaries I need in ways that acknowledge her good intentions and affirm her for them while still holding my ground. She began to recognize that my need for space isn't an indication of rejection, and assured of this, she seems to have less need to push. That's been a good starting point. It's made all the difference. We laugh now about things that would have been cause for dissension in the past: "When I'm old," she told my sister a couple of years ago, "I'm coming to live with you. Cindy would make me behave!" It's one of my favorite stories.
---Katharine Butler Hathaway
I do not remember ever feeling this way about my mother. Her personality and mine were so distinctly different that I rarely, if ever, felt the blissful connection between mother and child that is so highly lauded in our society. She loved ruffles and ribbons and layers of lace; I abhorred scratchy, itchy, dresses. She was highly emotional and very expressive; I was highly reflective and extremely reserved. She dressed me in bright red as often as possible; I loved blues and greens. She seemed to live for church activities and get-togethers; I despised Vacation Bible School. She went to nearly every school activity in which I was ever involved; I craved my own space. In short, she was (and is) an extravert's extravert, and I am a dyed in the wool introvert. The things that to her were the epitome of comfort and joy were nothing short of trial and torment to me, and our relationship was considerably rocky for a long time because of it. There were other rather pronounced difficulties, oh yes. Still, even those were exacerbated by her natural affinity for living in the outer world and my rather plain-spoken distain for it, by my bone-deep need to dwell first in the depths of a quiet inner world and (what seemed to me) her oblivion and utter disregard for that at all. For years she kept battering away at the walls I'd purposely built to keep her at a "safe" distance, never really seeming to understand that her efforts only necessitated thicker walls. For years I battled anger, bitterness and, yes, hatred--of her and myself both--as well as guilt that she would never be the mother I was sure I'd needed, and I could never be the daughter she wanted.
I forswore motherhood altogether by the time I was eleven or twelve and felt no small relief in doing so. Already by then I was investing much of my identity in my thought life and academic achievements and interests. No children would mean more time to read, more time to devote to writing. Also, already struggling with depression, I reasoned my decision would spare whatever children I might have had, from life itself, which I considered to be very little short of misery incarnate. My mind was made up. My life would be my own, and I would not use it to create and be part of the tearing apart of someone else's.
Then I met Great Scott, and somehow, I ended up with two daughters who think I am the be-all, end-all of motherhood, an unlikely and unlooked-for grace, for certain.
Our twelve year-old gave me a hand written card this morning thanking me for being there for her "in troubled times" (she's beginning to hit the high hormone stage, and we spent some time drying tears after bedtime last night), and our newly nine year-old's card expressed her hope to someday "be like" me (a thought that causes sheer terror to rise in my throat, I assure you). I know that adolescence may bring more troubled times. Already the mothers of my older daughter's friends compare notes about difficult attitudes and increasing relational struggles. I'm bracing myself, but so far I'm nothing but touched and humbled by our girl's (by both our girls') love and regard, a love and regard for and in a relationship with which I've had no former experience and which, in truth, I could never deserve.
And my relationship with my own mother now? Improved. No bitterness; no hatred. I learned to express and enforce some of the boundaries I need in ways that acknowledge her good intentions and affirm her for them while still holding my ground. She began to recognize that my need for space isn't an indication of rejection, and assured of this, she seems to have less need to push. That's been a good starting point. It's made all the difference. We laugh now about things that would have been cause for dissension in the past: "When I'm old," she told my sister a couple of years ago, "I'm coming to live with you. Cindy would make me behave!" It's one of my favorite stories.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Procrastination Aids: Ok! Ok! You told me so!
My brother-in-law and his very significant other have told me for nearly a year now that I remind them of Elizabeth Bennett, especially as she is portrayed in the A&E production of Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice. Today my dear pseudo-sister-in-law sent me a quizzlet. Guess what. :)
Which Jane Austen Character Are You?
You are Eliza Bennett from Pride and Prejudice! Yay, you! Perhaps the brightest and best character in all of English literature, you are intelligent, lively, lovely-- in short, you are the best of company. Your only foibles are that you stick with your first impressions... and your family is quite intolerable.
Take this quiz!
Which Jane Austen Character Are You?
You are Eliza Bennett from Pride and Prejudice! Yay, you! Perhaps the brightest and best character in all of English literature, you are intelligent, lively, lovely-- in short, you are the best of company. Your only foibles are that you stick with your first impressions... and your family is quite intolerable.
Take this quiz!
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Procrastination Aids: If You Were a Writer in the Fall...
I swear I was going for fantasy novelist!
And then there's this, uplifting thing that it is:
| You Should Be A Poet |
 |
And then there's this, uplifting thing that it is:
| You Are Changing Leaves |
 |
Friday, April 21, 2006
Friday Quote: On Useful Pets
The Tiger
The Tiger on the other hand,
is kittenish and mild,
He makes a pretty playfellow for any little child;
And mothers of large families (who claim to common sense)
Will find a Tiger well repay the trouble and expense.
--Hilaire Belloc
Cautionary Verses
The Tiger on the other hand,
is kittenish and mild,
He makes a pretty playfellow for any little child;
And mothers of large families (who claim to common sense)
Will find a Tiger well repay the trouble and expense.
--Hilaire Belloc
Cautionary Verses
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Worm
I recant. I don't hate people, and I feel like an invertebrate for having said so. What I need isn't a tirade, as satisfactory as that might sound. What I really need is to think about the day's good points. Here goes.
:::deep breath:::
1. The younger daughter after school this afternoon using her little stuffed eagle (school mascot) and her goldfish crackers to give us an impromptu demonstration at the table of what DDT does to the wildlife in an ecosystem. (I will never look at goldfish crackers the same way again.)
2. The older daughter buying her little sister a secret Easter gift with her own money.
3. Errand running with Grandma.
4. The sky at sunset as I sat on the glider and watched the colors change and the light soften.
5. The trilling of one of the creek frogs and the sweet chirping of the peepers (little tree frogs) as dusk deepened.
6. The more frequent desire to write, and the slowly widening freedom to dabble in fiction for the first time in almost twenty years.
7. A 10-15 minute conversation with a couple I'd just met--total strangers--in the hairspray aisle at Stuff-Mart. They are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this year, something that means more to me more than I can say. (Yes, I told them so and thanked them.)
8. The patient, hard-working, kind and faintly warped husband sleeping in the next room.
9. The light that spilled through the eastern windows in the bedroom this morning.
10. The God whose grace astounds and totally befuddles me.
:::deep breath:::
1. The younger daughter after school this afternoon using her little stuffed eagle (school mascot) and her goldfish crackers to give us an impromptu demonstration at the table of what DDT does to the wildlife in an ecosystem. (I will never look at goldfish crackers the same way again.)
2. The older daughter buying her little sister a secret Easter gift with her own money.
3. Errand running with Grandma.
4. The sky at sunset as I sat on the glider and watched the colors change and the light soften.
5. The trilling of one of the creek frogs and the sweet chirping of the peepers (little tree frogs) as dusk deepened.
6. The more frequent desire to write, and the slowly widening freedom to dabble in fiction for the first time in almost twenty years.
7. A 10-15 minute conversation with a couple I'd just met--total strangers--in the hairspray aisle at Stuff-Mart. They are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this year, something that means more to me more than I can say. (Yes, I told them so and thanked them.)
8. The patient, hard-working, kind and faintly warped husband sleeping in the next room.
9. The light that spilled through the eastern windows in the bedroom this morning.
10. The God whose grace astounds and totally befuddles me.
Overload
I.
Hate.
People.
(Note: If you are reading this, I will consider temporarily suspending you from membership in the human race so long as you do not call or show up on my doorstep for three days.)
Hate.
People.
(Note: If you are reading this, I will consider temporarily suspending you from membership in the human race so long as you do not call or show up on my doorstep for three days.)
Monday, April 10, 2006
Procrastination Aids: Zodiac
This little quizzlet is supposed to reveal which zodiac sign you should have been born under. Sometimes it's nice to know I've done something right. I was amused at the accuracy of the description, especially the first four points. The fifth is applicable on the last job only--I am decisively anti-athletic. The sixth is true, but only in the same sense as would be true for a train wreck, I'm afraid. The seventh...maybe; I wonder if black pepper and dill pickle potato chips apply, here.
| You Should Be An Aquarius |
 What's bad about you: you require a lot of space - it's hard to get close to you In love: you're quirky and playful, but you hate to be smothered In friendship, you're: likely to have many acquaintances and very few good friends Your ideal job: pilot, snow boarder, or science fiction writer Your sense of fashion: unconventional, unique outfits that turn heads You like to pig out on: anything with garlic or unique spices |
Friday, April 07, 2006
Friday Quote: On What Children Value
"Children are the true connoisseurs. What's precious to them has no price, only value."
--Bel Kaufman
--Bel Kaufman
A. Panda
This is the most important member of our family. She doesn't pick up after herself. She doesn't help with any other chores. She doesn't bring in an income or run errands or go to school. Be not deceived, however. A. Panda is entirely indispensible. She eats meals at the table. She plays outside with the girls. She goes to church. She goes to Grandma's house. She goes shopping. She oversees baths. She is present at nightly story times. She sleeps in the bed with our younger daughter every single night. Life cannot go on without her.
Wednesday we lost A. Panda somewhere between the schoolhouse and the girls' room upon arrival home. We ransaked the car. We traced our paths from the car, across the yard, into the house and in every single room wherein the younger daughter had set her foot since entry. A. was nowhere to be found. In desperation, I called the local convenience store back in town where we'd stopped for Icees after school. The girl working the front counter walked through the store and even looked out in the parking lot. She was very sympathetic, but she found no panda.
Eventually we did find A. Panda. She was upstairs in the girls' room sitting on a shelf. Well, no wonder we couldn't find her! The younger daughter had put her up! There was, I assure you, much rejoicing. Especially as Mama was just heading for her car keys to drive 15 miles back into town and scour the streets and parking lots for her.
Later that afternoon we found something else that added to our pandaic celebrations: the Panda Cam at the Smithsonian National Zoo.
We share our joy.
(Note: The Naked Mole Rat Cam is pretty interesting, too, although perhaps a large part of the attraction is the shock on people's faces when you tell them what you've been watching on the internet.)
Friday, March 31, 2006
Friday Quote: On the Past and Future
"The stories that you tell about your past shape your future."
--Eric Ransdell
--Eric Ransdell
The Meeting: The Blogosphere Converges on Real Life
Wednesday was difficult. Teri from Bo of the Bales, Jennifer of Wonderfully Ill Composed and I had agreed to meet at a used bookstore in a town we were all going to be near this week. Jennifer was once one of Great Scott’s students, and we’re familiar enough for me to be totally relaxed around her, but Teri I had never met in person before. It’s difficult meeting new people. You want to make a good impression on them. You want them to make a good impression on you. You want everyone to be peachy-keen and cozy right from the start. You are an INFP harmony seeker of the very worst sort. You set yourself up.
The couple of hours the three of us spent browsing a used bookstore and over lunch were pleasant. We talked about Jennifer’s upcoming trip to London, Teri’s kids, our literary tastes and distastes and tried happily without success for the most part, to find people we might know in common, growing up as we all have within the same general area. Jennifer seemed pretty much at ease, and Teri was bright and encouraging, an excellent conversationalist. I, on the other hand, couldn’t string four words together without my thoughts either getting muddled or losing the order in which I’d intended them to come out. I wasn’t feeling shy. I wasn’t even particularly nervous or antsy. The words just jammed if someone asked me a question. It wasn’t a new phenomenon, and although I apologized to Teri and blamed it on introversion’s need to process internally before speaking into the external world, I realized later more than that was going on. It had happened that morning while visiting with my grandmother. It happened later that afternoon when Jennifer and I ran by Great Scott’s classroom to take him chocolate. My brain was simply shorting out.
This happens occasionally, especially when seasonal mood swings set in. Low-level depression saps mental energy even more than physical, and the brain becomes easily muddled. I begin needing lists to go to the store. Lists for two items. Lists for one item. Lists for one item that I have to concentrate to remember in order to write it down. Plural: lists (I’ll lose just one), lists I triple check at the store and sometimes still don’t manage to bring home everything (both things). In this mode it takes me forever to cook a meal, because I forget what I’m fixing or how to fix it. It is not unusual for me to find myself standing bewildered in the middle of the kitchen holding an onion on one hand and a can opener in the other with no idea of how to open the onion or what to do with it once it’s open. This is what happened Wednesday. Trust befuddlement to strike at the same time as the ridiculous urge to make a good impression.
“It’s ok, Hon,” Scott comforted me when I told him about my awkwardness and Teri’s very sincere and very obvious patience and kindness. “Jennifer understands, and Teri probably just thinks you’re a socially inept genius. People think that about your dad all the time.” I overlooked the potential, playful insult to my relational skills and decided to take the double compliment instead: a genius and like my father. Being compared to Dad is a consolation any day, and Scott had been far too sweet in his delivery to be baiting me. Besides, I really had no energy for a comeback.
I went to bed early that night, then sat up after all, reading Kay Redfield Jamison’s Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, a book I’d long coveted and had found that day in the bookstore. Probably not the best choice of reading material given my condition, but it was helpful in a way, reestablishing for me the fact that the fogginess and dimming of the inner countries come and go without apparent rhyme or reason for some of us, and that when they do, what matters isn’t that one stumbled one’s way through a social situation with all the grace of an intoxicated elephant. What matters, indeed, is one’s willingness to continue stumbling and the grace and kindness with which those stumbles are received.
So, Teri and Jennifer, I thank you for Wednesday’s grace: your good company, your forbearance, your wit and your brightness. I’m grateful, and I'm chalking that grace up in my gifts and blessings column instead of lumping my own bumblings into the failures column. Lunch and the bookstore browse were fun. You are both most wonderfully enjoyable companions, and I gladly join Jane Kenyon in her oft repeated assertion of appreciation, “What clever friends I have. What clever friends I have!”*
[*Kenyon’s quote from Alice Mattison’s essay, “Let it Grow in the Dark Like a Mushroom” as published in the book Bright Unequivocal Eye: Poems, Papers and Remembrances from the First Jane Kenyon Conference, edited by Bert G. Hornback.]
The couple of hours the three of us spent browsing a used bookstore and over lunch were pleasant. We talked about Jennifer’s upcoming trip to London, Teri’s kids, our literary tastes and distastes and tried happily without success for the most part, to find people we might know in common, growing up as we all have within the same general area. Jennifer seemed pretty much at ease, and Teri was bright and encouraging, an excellent conversationalist. I, on the other hand, couldn’t string four words together without my thoughts either getting muddled or losing the order in which I’d intended them to come out. I wasn’t feeling shy. I wasn’t even particularly nervous or antsy. The words just jammed if someone asked me a question. It wasn’t a new phenomenon, and although I apologized to Teri and blamed it on introversion’s need to process internally before speaking into the external world, I realized later more than that was going on. It had happened that morning while visiting with my grandmother. It happened later that afternoon when Jennifer and I ran by Great Scott’s classroom to take him chocolate. My brain was simply shorting out.
This happens occasionally, especially when seasonal mood swings set in. Low-level depression saps mental energy even more than physical, and the brain becomes easily muddled. I begin needing lists to go to the store. Lists for two items. Lists for one item. Lists for one item that I have to concentrate to remember in order to write it down. Plural: lists (I’ll lose just one), lists I triple check at the store and sometimes still don’t manage to bring home everything (both things). In this mode it takes me forever to cook a meal, because I forget what I’m fixing or how to fix it. It is not unusual for me to find myself standing bewildered in the middle of the kitchen holding an onion on one hand and a can opener in the other with no idea of how to open the onion or what to do with it once it’s open. This is what happened Wednesday. Trust befuddlement to strike at the same time as the ridiculous urge to make a good impression.
“It’s ok, Hon,” Scott comforted me when I told him about my awkwardness and Teri’s very sincere and very obvious patience and kindness. “Jennifer understands, and Teri probably just thinks you’re a socially inept genius. People think that about your dad all the time.” I overlooked the potential, playful insult to my relational skills and decided to take the double compliment instead: a genius and like my father. Being compared to Dad is a consolation any day, and Scott had been far too sweet in his delivery to be baiting me. Besides, I really had no energy for a comeback.
I went to bed early that night, then sat up after all, reading Kay Redfield Jamison’s Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, a book I’d long coveted and had found that day in the bookstore. Probably not the best choice of reading material given my condition, but it was helpful in a way, reestablishing for me the fact that the fogginess and dimming of the inner countries come and go without apparent rhyme or reason for some of us, and that when they do, what matters isn’t that one stumbled one’s way through a social situation with all the grace of an intoxicated elephant. What matters, indeed, is one’s willingness to continue stumbling and the grace and kindness with which those stumbles are received.
So, Teri and Jennifer, I thank you for Wednesday’s grace: your good company, your forbearance, your wit and your brightness. I’m grateful, and I'm chalking that grace up in my gifts and blessings column instead of lumping my own bumblings into the failures column. Lunch and the bookstore browse were fun. You are both most wonderfully enjoyable companions, and I gladly join Jane Kenyon in her oft repeated assertion of appreciation, “What clever friends I have. What clever friends I have!”*
[*Kenyon’s quote from Alice Mattison’s essay, “Let it Grow in the Dark Like a Mushroom” as published in the book Bright Unequivocal Eye: Poems, Papers and Remembrances from the First Jane Kenyon Conference, edited by Bert G. Hornback.]
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Worth Reading: Frankenwasher: the Poem
Occasionally you run into something on the Web that tickles your fancy. I am a very serious person in real life. This is why I post so much frivolity on this blog; it's an attempt to lighten up, to remind myself that life is also fraught with the absurd. Poetry, like life, can be a pretty serious business, and poets are renown for being deep and philosophically moody. This is why, when I run across a poem that makes me laugh out loud for sheer, gleeful pleasure, I appreciate it doubly. And the fact that I'm married to the author? I'd say that just confirms my good taste.
Go read Frankenwasher: Prometheus was All Wet.
Go read Frankenwasher: Prometheus was All Wet.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Friday Quote: On What Determines Who We Really Are
"It is not our abilities that show who we really are. It is our choices."
--from the character Adolphus Dumbledore
in the movie "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"
--from the character Adolphus Dumbledore
in the movie "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Instead of Blogging: Things I've Done in the Past Nine Days
1. Worked the school book fair.
2. Visited and run errands with my grandmother.
3. Parent-Teacher conferences.
4. Taxes.
5. Paid monthly bills.
6. Packaged up Jif Extra Crunchy to send across the pond.
7. More pen and paper journaling than usual.
8. Drafted two new poems...or maybe three.
9. Taken the girls to the library.
10. Spent a slow weekend watching movies with Scott and the girls. (Note: I have lived the movie "Junebug", although not so much in regard to Great Scott's family.)
11. Cleaned strawberry vomit out of pale beige carpeting at 3:00 a.m.
12. Watched an amaryllis open into a flourish of deep red trumpets in my windowsill.
13. Obsessed over fountain pens.
14. Spent a day with the girls in Springfield for dental visits, spring shoe shopping and a trip to Borders.
15. Had a long overdue visit with a friend.
16. Laughed with my brother on the phone.
17. Battled a false self.
18. Made pound cake from scratch.
19. Cleaned fallen branches and twigs out of the yard.
20. Stayed functional, if not optimal.
2. Visited and run errands with my grandmother.
3. Parent-Teacher conferences.
4. Taxes.
5. Paid monthly bills.
6. Packaged up Jif Extra Crunchy to send across the pond.
7. More pen and paper journaling than usual.
8. Drafted two new poems...or maybe three.
9. Taken the girls to the library.
10. Spent a slow weekend watching movies with Scott and the girls. (Note: I have lived the movie "Junebug", although not so much in regard to Great Scott's family.)
11. Cleaned strawberry vomit out of pale beige carpeting at 3:00 a.m.
12. Watched an amaryllis open into a flourish of deep red trumpets in my windowsill.
13. Obsessed over fountain pens.
14. Spent a day with the girls in Springfield for dental visits, spring shoe shopping and a trip to Borders.
15. Had a long overdue visit with a friend.
16. Laughed with my brother on the phone.
17. Battled a false self.
18. Made pound cake from scratch.
19. Cleaned fallen branches and twigs out of the yard.
20. Stayed functional, if not optimal.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Tornados
Last night and into the early hours of this morning the National Weather Service had 56 reports of tornados in the Ozarks with more across the midwest. Scott and I sat up until the first line of storms was past. Then we fell asleep in the living room, leaving the television on, vivid radar colors splashing across the screen, to wait for the second line. The girls, who usually sleep upstairs were snugged cozily into our bed, and my closet had been cleared out and a radio and some batteries and blankets tucked into the corners, just in case. Somewhere around 1:00-1:30 a.m. I woke up to find Scott had retired to the girls' bed and the second line of storms was upon us.
Our internet connection is dial-up, and we'd be stupid to leave our computers plugged into either electrical outlets or phone lines during a Missouri thunderstorm, especially after having lost two modems and a monitor that way. So there was no live blogging the storms that shook the house and pelted the windows with tiny hail. I did, however, journal parts of the evening, and at the risk of exposing my unedited thoughts, will share.
[approximately 9:30 p.m. Sunday]
Presently I'm lying on the couch watching the news. Evidently last night several tornados went through Missouri, one of them in Vanzant, another in Branson. Currently they're tracking three more. It isn't storming here, although the wind speaks to the fact that somewhere not too far away, it is. On the map, a N->S line of storms is advancing on Springfield from the west, a line with tornado(s) very possibly and likely within it. Welcome to spring in Missouri.
[Scribbled near-absentminded notes while we watched the storm line press its way into Springfield]
When the winds begin
tearing at the roof and flinging
limbs against the walls--hear
them creak and pop with the changing
pressure--When the rain chills and hardens, tries
to break inside, smashes
holes in siding, crashes through the picture
windows, wrenching curtains from their rods, stripping
finish from the sills. When the roar
surrounds your body, solidifies the air
within your lungs,
When the storm comes, find
the lowest point, descend,
go to the center...
[approximately 10:10-20 p.m. (?)]
Listening to Springfield's KY3's live news. When they brought in hail the size of a half dollar, the studio was fairly quiet. Now you can hear the hail on the station roof like gangbusters, the weathermen are practically yelling, and the hail they're showing is the size of something between golf and tennis balls...Now bigger than tennis balls...And now it's quiet. It's quiet because it's headed across Webster County for us. Sitting on the couch, I can see out the living room's double windows to the west and SEE it [the storm] coming. The radar close-ups look to me as though the storm IS lessening overall, although the hotspots are still very pronounced.
11:19 p.m.
Fast approaching. I've cleaned out my closet and put one of the CD/radio thingies in there with a set of headphones and a bunch of batteries. Scott brought the girls down, and they're sleeping in our bed right now.
Rain. Only a bit. And some wind. According to the news guys on channel 10, it should be at Duncan up the road right now. 2 minutes [away]. Personally, judging by what's going on outside, I don't think it will be too bad here, save for the wind, and that not even too bad, I think. It seems to have moved north and gotten smaller, resulting in it skimming Hwy 38, for the most part...
11:38 p.m.
Scott is lying on the couch trying to sleep. I'll nap on the recliner tonight. There is another line of storms coming through that is currently east of Joplin. They're not as bad, judging from the radar, as this one was, but they're stronger than they were at first, so we're going to leave the girls in our bed for the night, just in case...although... I COULD go upstairs and sleep in THEIR bed.
11:45 p.m.
The [first] storm that went over us is passing 'Grove [Grovespring], where it apparently picked up strength if not size of area covered.
Picture [on the news] of the hail that fell in Springfield just now. 45 minutes ago, and the thing is pretty much softball or grapefruit size. I need to turn out the light and nap. (We're leaving the TV on, albeit w/ the sound turned off. This is why I can tell you that there are great big trees down across National Avenue [in Springfield].
Sleep, Cindy. Go to sleep. While you can, Lady.
Monday, March 13, 2006
6:18 a.m.
[The girls' school] is closed due to storm damage.
What happened between telling myself to go to sleep and the school closing report is that Great Scott beat me to the girls' bed, and I woke up, as I've said, with the second line of storms directly over the county line. Directly over us. I wouldn't have had time to wake Scott up and get the girls into the closet before the tornado would have been on us, if it had come through our field. As it was, it or something very like a tornado destroyed a home of some people we know just a few miles away and damaged some other friends' houses. Six homes were destroyed near Competition and Grovespring--little communities to the near northeast whose children attend school with ours. And in Marshfield, the town just to the west, 40 homes were destroyed in a subdivision.
...And I'd intended to blog about office supply stores today.
Updates:
1. Jennifer blogs about tornado weather in Columbia, Missouri this weekend here and here.
2. My mother reports that one of their customers lost their house as well.
3. The Amish community near us (see "Duncan" and "2 minutes away" above) is rumored to have been hit badly.
Our internet connection is dial-up, and we'd be stupid to leave our computers plugged into either electrical outlets or phone lines during a Missouri thunderstorm, especially after having lost two modems and a monitor that way. So there was no live blogging the storms that shook the house and pelted the windows with tiny hail. I did, however, journal parts of the evening, and at the risk of exposing my unedited thoughts, will share.
[approximately 9:30 p.m. Sunday]
Presently I'm lying on the couch watching the news. Evidently last night several tornados went through Missouri, one of them in Vanzant, another in Branson. Currently they're tracking three more. It isn't storming here, although the wind speaks to the fact that somewhere not too far away, it is. On the map, a N->S line of storms is advancing on Springfield from the west, a line with tornado(s) very possibly and likely within it. Welcome to spring in Missouri.
[Scribbled near-absentminded notes while we watched the storm line press its way into Springfield]
When the winds begin
tearing at the roof and flinging
limbs against the walls--hear
them creak and pop with the changing
pressure--When the rain chills and hardens, tries
to break inside, smashes
holes in siding, crashes through the picture
windows, wrenching curtains from their rods, stripping
finish from the sills. When the roar
surrounds your body, solidifies the air
within your lungs,
When the storm comes, find
the lowest point, descend,
go to the center...
[approximately 10:10-20 p.m. (?)]
Listening to Springfield's KY3's live news. When they brought in hail the size of a half dollar, the studio was fairly quiet. Now you can hear the hail on the station roof like gangbusters, the weathermen are practically yelling, and the hail they're showing is the size of something between golf and tennis balls...Now bigger than tennis balls...And now it's quiet. It's quiet because it's headed across Webster County for us. Sitting on the couch, I can see out the living room's double windows to the west and SEE it [the storm] coming. The radar close-ups look to me as though the storm IS lessening overall, although the hotspots are still very pronounced.
11:19 p.m.
Fast approaching. I've cleaned out my closet and put one of the CD/radio thingies in there with a set of headphones and a bunch of batteries. Scott brought the girls down, and they're sleeping in our bed right now.
Rain. Only a bit. And some wind. According to the news guys on channel 10, it should be at Duncan up the road right now. 2 minutes [away]. Personally, judging by what's going on outside, I don't think it will be too bad here, save for the wind, and that not even too bad, I think. It seems to have moved north and gotten smaller, resulting in it skimming Hwy 38, for the most part...
11:38 p.m.
Scott is lying on the couch trying to sleep. I'll nap on the recliner tonight. There is another line of storms coming through that is currently east of Joplin. They're not as bad, judging from the radar, as this one was, but they're stronger than they were at first, so we're going to leave the girls in our bed for the night, just in case...although... I COULD go upstairs and sleep in THEIR bed.
11:45 p.m.
The [first] storm that went over us is passing 'Grove [Grovespring], where it apparently picked up strength if not size of area covered.
Picture [on the news] of the hail that fell in Springfield just now. 45 minutes ago, and the thing is pretty much softball or grapefruit size. I need to turn out the light and nap. (We're leaving the TV on, albeit w/ the sound turned off. This is why I can tell you that there are great big trees down across National Avenue [in Springfield].
Sleep, Cindy. Go to sleep. While you can, Lady.
Monday, March 13, 2006
6:18 a.m.
[The girls' school] is closed due to storm damage.
What happened between telling myself to go to sleep and the school closing report is that Great Scott beat me to the girls' bed, and I woke up, as I've said, with the second line of storms directly over the county line. Directly over us. I wouldn't have had time to wake Scott up and get the girls into the closet before the tornado would have been on us, if it had come through our field. As it was, it or something very like a tornado destroyed a home of some people we know just a few miles away and damaged some other friends' houses. Six homes were destroyed near Competition and Grovespring--little communities to the near northeast whose children attend school with ours. And in Marshfield, the town just to the west, 40 homes were destroyed in a subdivision.
...And I'd intended to blog about office supply stores today.
Updates:
1. Jennifer blogs about tornado weather in Columbia, Missouri this weekend here and here.
2. My mother reports that one of their customers lost their house as well.
3. The Amish community near us (see "Duncan" and "2 minutes away" above) is rumored to have been hit badly.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Procrastination Aids: Which Work of Classic Literature Are You?
Unabashedly filtched from Michael at Stick Poet Superhero.
J.R.R. Tolkien: Lord of the Rings. You are
entertaining and imaginative, creating whole
new worlds around yourself. Well loved, you
have a whole league of imitators, none of
which is quite as profound as you are.
Stories and songs give a spark of joy in the
middle of your eternal battle with the forces
of evil.
Which literature classic are you?
J.R.R. Tolkien: Lord of the Rings. You are
entertaining and imaginative, creating whole
new worlds around yourself. Well loved, you
have a whole league of imitators, none of
which is quite as profound as you are.
Stories and songs give a spark of joy in the
middle of your eternal battle with the forces
of evil.
Which literature classic are you?
Monday, March 06, 2006
Procrastination Aids: Muppets. Lovely
Below you will find my first and second results. No inner conflicts going on here, nosirree.
| You Are Animal |
 |
| You Are Dr. Bunsen Honeydew |
 |
Friday, March 03, 2006
Friday Quote: On Life and Lemons
"When Life hands you lemons, smile politely and throw them away when Life isn't looking."
--unknown
--unknown
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Thirteen Dreams of Doings
 |
Thirteen Things Lucinda Dreams of Doing 1. Owning and living in a house with huge windows and floor to ceiling bookshelves...in every room. 2. Or a hobbit hole similarly outfitted. 3. In the middle of nowhere. 4. Publishing a book of poetry with which I'm satisfied. 5. Throwing things away without feeling guilty or wasteful. 6. Fitting in size 10 clothes again. 7. Traveling in or living in Scotland. 8. And the rest of Great Britian. 9. Understanding the trees' language. 10. Spilling joy into our daughters' lives. 11. Having Great Scott! look back on our marriage after 60 years and say, "It was worth it." 12. Being a vehicle for light. 13. Living each day in stillness, regardless of circumstances. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! |
Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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A note: The idea for this particular Thurday Thirteen was happily and unabashedly snitched from Meg (see #1 above).
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Stolen Meme: Five Simple Things
I've posted often in the past about the little, everyday things that I cling to in times of slipping sanity. I don't post about these things because they're constantly before me; I post them because I need the constant reminder, to draw my own attention to them as much as to draw the readers'. This morning when I read Jordana's list, I realized how much I've been overlooking and underappreciating the little things again. Time to remedy the situation. Thanks for the reminder, Jordana.
Five Little Things that Bring You Satisfaction or Pleasure
1. Stroking the Great Golden Sun Cat
2. Sitting on a pond or creek bank in the sun.
3. The sky. In any weather.
4. A warm husband upon whom to place my cold feet at night.
5. Green, growing things.
I know it's easy to say, "If you've read this, consider yourself tagged," but I really mean it. I want to know everyone's simple pleasures. Leave a comment or just post. I'll be watching for them.
Five Little Things that Bring You Satisfaction or Pleasure
1. Stroking the Great Golden Sun Cat
2. Sitting on a pond or creek bank in the sun.
3. The sky. In any weather.
4. A warm husband upon whom to place my cold feet at night.
5. Green, growing things.
I know it's easy to say, "If you've read this, consider yourself tagged," but I really mean it. I want to know everyone's simple pleasures. Leave a comment or just post. I'll be watching for them.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Writing Fun
Writing can be a lot of fun. Especially if it's someone else's. Below are two excerpts by Great Scott's students, who are turning in papers on To Kill a Mockingbird.
"Mr. Ewell, Mayella's father, attacks Jem, Atticus son, who is a layer for Tom Robinson. Mr. Ewell whines up getting stabbed and dieing."
And
"Tom Robinson...has a trail for the rapping of Mayella."
"Mr. Ewell, Mayella's father, attacks Jem, Atticus son, who is a layer for Tom Robinson. Mr. Ewell whines up getting stabbed and dieing."
And
"Tom Robinson...has a trail for the rapping of Mayella."
Friday, February 24, 2006
Friday Quote: On Choosing Between Evils
"Whenever I have to choose between two evils, I always like to try the one I haven't tried before."
--Mae West
--Mae West
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Life on the Coporeal Plane
Great Scott commented recently that I'd not been blogging very much of late. He's right, of course. Part of the reason is that there's a lot going on in my head right now, and I don't like to talk or write about things publicly until I've sorted them out in the interior. I need a lot of space that way, and I've ceased feeling guilty for taking it. The blog has been neglected of late, though, so here are a few of the things that have been happening on the coporeal plane of existence here at PossumBox Lane:
1. We spent eight dollars on corn syrup yesterday for the older daughter's science project. For those of you who have never seen an eight inch deep layer of shocking red corn syrup in a giant pickle jar, topped with an inch of styrofoam peanuts, a layer of moss, some upright eucalyptus sprigs and a couple of tiny dinosaurs, well...I pity your educational deficiency and offer my deepest condolences. Her presentation on the asthenosphere (the layer of earth directly beneath the lithosphere, in case you're wondering) is today around 2ish. She is frighteningly well-prepared. Her little sister, the owner of the dinosaurs, was anxious that the upright dinosaur's toes might be dangling through the moss into melting rock. "He could start a volcano!" was the voiced concern.
2. Because Great Scott's school was canceled for snow yesterday, he went with me to purchase the aforementioned corn syrup and other sundries at a Stuff-Mart a couple of towns away. On our way out the doors, the security alarms went off, and I was instructed by a recorded voice to, "Please pull [my] cart to the side and wait for an attendent." The offending article turned out to be the generic suphedrine (a.k.a "Pseudo-Fed" in PossumBox lingo), a quantity controlled substance here in Missouri due to our state's high rates of methamphetamine production. Evidently the package hadn't been sufficiently demagnatized at the counter when my driver's license number and signature were recorded. Maybe if they'd taken a blood sample...
I suggested to Great Scott that it might be fun next time I set off an alarm, for him to immediately make a dash for the door and see if the security people follow him. He didn't think much of this suggestion. Sometimes he displays a significantly disappointing lack of adventurousness.
3. We've been watching the Olympics. Watching the Olympics at our house is a whole sport in itself, since the younger daughter is apparently unable to view a sport without bodily acting it out. Figure skating and ice dancing become entirely new experiences with an eight-year old twizzling and triple axel-ing between you and the screen. The best solution we've found is for her to sit on my lap. Now I just have to dodge her head as she leans into the curves during the bobsledding. I should just be thankful there's no sumo wrestling or fencing this time around.
4. I have been playing with my dip pen again and remembering how much I love the physical act of writing this way. I'm currently stalking a fountain pen, so I can take it with me to do journal writing in the car while I wait for the girls to get out of school. Ah, ink!
5. Admiring the Christmas tree.
6. Considering taking the Christmas tree down.
7. Admiring the Christmas tree some more. See the pretty lights!
8. Taking my grandmother on errands, sweeping snow off her walk and helping get her house ready for the delivery of a new bed and a hardwood floor installation in one room. Spending time with her is always worth multiple missed blog entries. She is an exceptional person.
9. A friend of ours gave us a book on having tea that included a scone recipie which has proven easy enough for after-school scones and tea to become a very real option. The older daughter even traded one of her extra-special Valentine's chocolates to me for a promise to make scones for her breakfast the next morning. I think eating scones while she sits barefoot on the floor in front of her Saturday morning cartoons makes her feel civilized. :)
10. I caught a mouse. A live mouse. Then I threw it outside along with the cat (Tongue Depressor Kitty) that had brought it in and turned it loose in my dining room. She'd "prrrt"ed to call me to come and see it. I can only suppose she wanted to teach me how to put some decent food on the table.
1. We spent eight dollars on corn syrup yesterday for the older daughter's science project. For those of you who have never seen an eight inch deep layer of shocking red corn syrup in a giant pickle jar, topped with an inch of styrofoam peanuts, a layer of moss, some upright eucalyptus sprigs and a couple of tiny dinosaurs, well...I pity your educational deficiency and offer my deepest condolences. Her presentation on the asthenosphere (the layer of earth directly beneath the lithosphere, in case you're wondering) is today around 2ish. She is frighteningly well-prepared. Her little sister, the owner of the dinosaurs, was anxious that the upright dinosaur's toes might be dangling through the moss into melting rock. "He could start a volcano!" was the voiced concern.
2. Because Great Scott's school was canceled for snow yesterday, he went with me to purchase the aforementioned corn syrup and other sundries at a Stuff-Mart a couple of towns away. On our way out the doors, the security alarms went off, and I was instructed by a recorded voice to, "Please pull [my] cart to the side and wait for an attendent." The offending article turned out to be the generic suphedrine (a.k.a "Pseudo-Fed" in PossumBox lingo), a quantity controlled substance here in Missouri due to our state's high rates of methamphetamine production. Evidently the package hadn't been sufficiently demagnatized at the counter when my driver's license number and signature were recorded. Maybe if they'd taken a blood sample...
I suggested to Great Scott that it might be fun next time I set off an alarm, for him to immediately make a dash for the door and see if the security people follow him. He didn't think much of this suggestion. Sometimes he displays a significantly disappointing lack of adventurousness.
3. We've been watching the Olympics. Watching the Olympics at our house is a whole sport in itself, since the younger daughter is apparently unable to view a sport without bodily acting it out. Figure skating and ice dancing become entirely new experiences with an eight-year old twizzling and triple axel-ing between you and the screen. The best solution we've found is for her to sit on my lap. Now I just have to dodge her head as she leans into the curves during the bobsledding. I should just be thankful there's no sumo wrestling or fencing this time around.
4. I have been playing with my dip pen again and remembering how much I love the physical act of writing this way. I'm currently stalking a fountain pen, so I can take it with me to do journal writing in the car while I wait for the girls to get out of school. Ah, ink!
5. Admiring the Christmas tree.
6. Considering taking the Christmas tree down.
7. Admiring the Christmas tree some more. See the pretty lights!
8. Taking my grandmother on errands, sweeping snow off her walk and helping get her house ready for the delivery of a new bed and a hardwood floor installation in one room. Spending time with her is always worth multiple missed blog entries. She is an exceptional person.
9. A friend of ours gave us a book on having tea that included a scone recipie which has proven easy enough for after-school scones and tea to become a very real option. The older daughter even traded one of her extra-special Valentine's chocolates to me for a promise to make scones for her breakfast the next morning. I think eating scones while she sits barefoot on the floor in front of her Saturday morning cartoons makes her feel civilized. :)
10. I caught a mouse. A live mouse. Then I threw it outside along with the cat (Tongue Depressor Kitty) that had brought it in and turned it loose in my dining room. She'd "prrrt"ed to call me to come and see it. I can only suppose she wanted to teach me how to put some decent food on the table.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Friday Quote: On Writing Poetry
"8. Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours."
--Jane Kenyon
an excerpt from "Everything I Know About Writing Poetry (Notes for a lecture)"
from her book, A Hundred White Daffodils
--Jane Kenyon
an excerpt from "Everything I Know About Writing Poetry (Notes for a lecture)"
from her book, A Hundred White Daffodils
Friday, February 10, 2006
Friday Quote: On Curiosity
"Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life."
--Linus Pauling
--Linus Pauling
Thursday, February 09, 2006
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Thirteen Vices of Lucinda's 1. Amazon.com
1. Dawn |
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Friday, February 03, 2006
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