Analog Girl

Quantum Leapin'

2011-12-22T12:59:00.001-08:00

One of the things I don't always like to admit I love about being at my parents' house is TV. I don't have cable in Richmond, and that's a very good thing. I never wish I had it. But when I'm here in Henderson, it's quite exciting to exercise the power of DVR. I often flip it on when I'm eating just to see what's up.

This morning, I came across Quantum Leap, the baller-est show of the 90s. It used to come on at noon every day, already reruns when we were kids, and my brother and I watched it with lunch. Here's the intro, which tells the premise more concisely than I would.

The episode I watched the end of today was the epic-est one because he leaps into HIS OWN SELF at age 16! Win. He knows his brother is about to go to Vietnam and die there, so he tries to keep him from going. It doesn't go well. He's all, "On April 8th, you have to hide in the deepest hole you can find. Promise me." Then he plays "Imagine" for his little sister and tells her the Beatles are going to break up and Paul's going to have a new band called Wings. She gets upset because she's never heard the song before, and probably because of Wings too. Then his awesome hologram advocate Al says, "You're not making it better. You're not changing anything in the future. You're only making them miserable now."

I'm guessing this lesson pops up in most episodes of the show. Knowing the future wouldn't make it better. It would just make us anxious. If I knew the great things in store for me, I'd just be impatient to get to them and not content with the present. If I knew the bad things, I'd be more of a worrier and a downer. This all assumes you can't change things, which we don't really know. But it certainly makes me feel better about the not-knowing.

Also, Scott Bakula= Hey there, sailor.

Wedding Report #5: Molly & Eric

2011-11-23T14:56:00.000-08:00

This was the last of the five-month wedding run. Mom came to Richmond on Thursday night, and we left early on Friday for the land of Grey's Anatomy and Starbucks. The wedding was in Port Gamble, a small town outside Seattle. On the way, we checked out (the gift shop of) the glass museum in Tacoma, and we might have seen a building made of shipping containers. We saw Molly and her family when we got to the hotel, then we got amazing pizzas from a local joint.

Let me take a break to tell you about Molly. Of those who are not related to me, I have known her and kept in touch with her longer than almost anyone. She didn't come to Henderson until she was in eighth grade and I was in ninth. She was my brother's age but was in some of my classes for math because her former school district had had a different math track, and because she's wicked smart. Then she was in the combined French 3/4 class with me, my brother, our friend Doug, and a very few others. We saw Elf together in the theater, and the first Harry Potter. Molly lives within walking distance, so when it snowed she would go with us to the elementary school with the good hills. Molly was studying in London while I was in France, so our moms came over one weekend and we all met in Paris. After college, I lived with her and her sweet dog for a few months. Molly is an awesome cook and a great encourager. It's so nice to go across the country to celebrate someone you've known for that long and enjoyed so much.

The wedding was in this tiny chapel in a slight drizzle. All the music was from the Harry Potter movies, most of it recognizable only to fans as diehard as Molly. The main color was dark purple. I knew all the bridesmaids. At the reception, we sat with some of Molly's coworkers, who told my mom they loved Molly and would take care of her.

The whole trip, Mom didn't stop telling me that all the trees were pointy. It was neat to be in an all-evergreen environment, and occasionally we would round a bend and encounter a majestic lake with mountains beyond it. I'm proud of Molly for embracing a new place and a new family, creating a life that suits her to a T, and always being true to herself and those who love her.

Wedding Report #4: Lindsey & Jeremy

2011-10-29T20:52:00.000-07:00

This wedding was a long time ago. September 10. I started the fall semester two days later, and blogging hasn't been a priority since then, but I've felt that absence, so here goes.

Lindsey and Jeremy got married at Landfall, the ritzy country club in Wilmington. I left Richmond early in the morning and rolled in just in time for a luncheon at Elijah's on the waterfront. It was awesome to see Stacey and Lyndsay and Lindsey and to get to know the other bridesmaids I'd heard so much about. I remembered other meals I'd had there, the one where Sims called randomly in the middle of it just to see how I was, the one where Katie walked across the restaurant to fix the blinds for me because the sun was in my eyes, the dinner we had to say goodbye to the same Katie but she didn't even make it and I was bummed.

After a happy girly lunch, Stacey and Lyndsay and I met up with Stacey's husband Bobby and got ice cream at Kilwin's and took pictures at the river in our dresses and, well, I wouldn't even say we caught up because these are people with whom you pick up where you left off, no big whoop. Lyndsay is in Colorado, and she says it finally feels like a real life. Stacey is in a tiny not-even-town in North Carolina, Bobby working in his parents' store and Stacey home with baby Jonah. Best mental image of the trip: Bobby worked at Starbucks before they moved. Every employee gets a free pound of coffee or container of tea or whatever each week, and before they moved, everyone at the store gave Bobby their freebies, so their pantry out there in nowheresville is filled with options for coffee and tea and cocoa and any such thing they could want.

The rehearsal involved mostly walking up and down the aisle, and then for the rehearsal dinner we went to the Pilot House, right next door to where we had lunch. I saw not one but two videos of babies dancing, and the mosquitos came out something fierce but someone had bug spray to share.

I got back to Jeff and Brinley's and watched The Soup and talked with Brinley for a bit before sleeping in their guest room, which has a remote-control fan. On Saturday morning, I woke to the sound of Brinley using her KitchenAid; she was working on concord-grape-and-rosemary focaccia. It was incredible. Jeff was out surfing. Brinley had made granola bars earlier (which I've been making ever since), and she broke one up and served it to me with vanilla yogurt and strawberries. Amy and Eric came over and hung out. The best thing about seeing old friends (OK, I know I'd only been away for two months, but a lot had happened in that time) is the ease of it, like you never left. It felt like I just happened to be over at Jeff and Brinley's that morning.

I got to Landfall in time to hang out for a little bit with Lindsey and the girls before we took our places. Everything was beautiful and sweet, and when they knelt for communion with their backs to us, we could see the bottom of Jeremy's shoes which said "Lucky" on the left and "Me" on the right.

At dinner, I sat with Elizabeth and Lindsay (yes, we are overrun with Lindsay/Lindsey/Lyndsay in that group, but at least they have different spellings), and again it was like old times, giggling about boys and getting excited about Elizabeth's applications to law school and feeding off each other's sweetness and care. The cake was the best wedding cake I've had, the speeches were precious and touching, the dancing was wild, and the whole thing made me see, on the fourth time, why it is that weddings are so great.

It's so not about lovey-dovey romantic mess, like I must have thought it was. Weddings celebrate love in general, and every type of love is present there. You have people who watched the bride and groom grow up, little kids who look up to them, new friends, old friends, neighbors, coworkers, every type of family, church friends, school friends, those who babysat for them and those whom they have babysat. I saw that very clearly at the Moore wedding, not that I didn't at the others. I saw how much Lindsey's coworkers love her. I saw how much her parents love her. Jeremy, great as he is, he's just icing, and that's as it should be.

I stayed with Megan, who was wearing almost exactly the dress I had thought about wearing, and slept hard and woke up and had salted caramel something at Starbucks because they were out of pumpkin spice and went to Pine Valley United Methodist for their 50th anniversary service and lunch, and I looked at what they were putting in the time capsule and hugged all the youth and ate a pot-luck lunch and listened to how all the couples at my table met.

Then I went to the Guppies' house. Baby Jack was asleep, and I had a good visit with Chris and Brian. When it was time to leave, I had to think hard of how much I loved seminary, which I really did and still do, but man, was it hard to tear myself away.

Thank you, Jeremy and Lindsey and everyone involved in the wedding, Jeff and Brinley and everyone from Pine Valley, Chris and Brian and everyone else I got to see in Wilmington, thank you, thank you, thank you Wilmington itself for drawing all these fine people, for being the place where we met and lived and shared and grew, for being the place where I finally started to get it.

New Development

2011-09-04T18:08:00.000-07:00

I highly recommend that you check out the new online journal The Polycultural, created by some friends of mine from Wilmington. Poke around and see how you like it! One of your favorite bloggers has a post in there. Enjoy.

Moving Right Along

2011-09-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

Presenting the last couple weeks in scenes:

1) Enjoying the hurricane in Mike's apartment, listening to him and Howard and Thomas play the best of our early adolescence, candlelight reflecting off beer bottles because we'd turned the lights out the better to see the storm. Also a girls-vs.-guys game of something like charades.

2) Eating pizza at Mom and Dad's house with old friends we usually see only at holidays, followed by peaches with granola and whipped cream.

3) The dazzling progressive-dinner parade-of-love quality of my morning in Davidson and evening in Charlotte. So many delightful people in one day! Rob Spach! Anne Wills! Daniel Ervin! Mike and Katie Foote! That's my kind of company. The best part was the effortlessness of reconnecting after various amounts of time apart, facilitated by Box Turtle Mocha at Summit Coffee, quiche and hamburger, pizza and beer, and the deep goodness of the people involved. In between, reading free New York Timeses, a Davidson institution.

4) That first breathtaking glimpse of Blue Ridge through the trees, and the instant familiarity of Blowing Rock even after years away.

5) Mast General Store full of cozy socks (and I don't even like socks!), scarves, fleece, and other layers of goodness making me so ready for fall.

Wedding Report #3: Chrissy & Ryan

2011-08-21T17:23:00.000-07:00

I was only out of town for about 24 hours this time, and my trip included a few minutes in West Virginia and going through mountain tunnels. The mother of the bride works with my mom, so I grew up knowing Chrissy and her twin sister, Kala, who are a year younger than me. The wedding was on their family farm at the house that Button (Chrissy & Kala's mom) built. My mom and her friends had gone a few months (years?) ago to help build the stone wall behind where they said their vows.

Mom's friends and I drank beers on the back row while the wedding went on. Kala gave Chrissy away. There was Everclear-spiked lemonade, and s'mores instead of wedding cake, and the baked potatos and the zucchini in the zucchini bread/bars came from just a few feet from where it was served in the field. The music was good, the groomsmen and groomswomen were really well coordinated with the bridesmaids, and the entire wedding party recited quotes from movies about love. The weather was very comfortable, even chilly toward the end. The whole thing was great, and everyone was happy, and love is grand. Thanks, Chrissy and Ryan, for the invitation; Button and Wendy for the hospitality; and everyone for the fun.

And the Circle Goes Round and Round

2011-08-19T09:25:00.000-07:00

I took my Hebrew final this morning. That means summer language school is over. That means almost everyone is going away for at least a week, and when we're all back for the fall, things will be different. There will be a lot more people that we don't know. We'll have more to do and less time to hang out. I don't feel great about this. Things are almost perfect now--better than ever--and change is not so hot when I like the way things are.

But I remember feeling basically this way when I realized I had to leave Wilmington. I had to stop and catch my breath when I thought about leaving my friends there and starting over. But look how it turned out! So I keep this in mind: change doesn't mean breaking a spell of awesomeness. It means a chance for life to get even better. Summer language, glorious though it is, is not an end in itself. It's just the beginning. As the Snakes on a Plane theme song says, "oh, I'm ready for it. C'mon, bring it."

Our class wrote a song for our professor to the tune of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." We weren't ready when he came in, so we asked him to go away and come back. As I'd predicted, the song made him cry. A fitting end to a beautiful time together.

A Surprise

2011-08-18T19:51:00.001-07:00

I was just looking back through old blog posts because I'm narcissistic and don't want to study, and when I read references to Beulaville and Richlands, I actually felt nostalgic for them! Those are the towns I covered for work. This is a surprise because a) it feels SOOOOOOO much longer ago than it is. It's only been 2 months since my last day of work. And b) I kind of suspected I might love those towns but never thought it would manifest so clearly as affection so soon. Working there was grueling in certain ways, and I thought the preciousness of the people would take at least a year to overcome that in my memory. I did kinda have my eye on churches around there once I started thinkin' seminary. If I had me a hubby or some kind of friend posse, living in one of those places could be possibly maybe one day in some sense pretty sweet. This is coming from the person who foams at the mouth when New York is mentioned. Sometimes I think I should get excited about fewer things, for instance, come on, woman! Small towns or big cities, which is it? You can't love both! But then I'm like, watch me.

Speaking of friend posses, just so you know, I know exactly what I would do if I won the lottery: first, invest in a safe but relatively high-interest something while I plan. (Thanks, Mom and Dad, for teaching me right!) Then, buy a bunch of land and build sweet buildings on it, and then invite everyone I love to come and live there indefinitely. I just now thought it could also involve traveling together, hence the term "posse." Also we would go see The Book of Mormon, like, right now, because I'd suddenly be able to make that happen.

One time we were talking in Sunday School about paradise, and I think some people had it confused with "island paradise," because they kept referencing beaches and fruity drinks. But I said paradise is having everyone together. Being an adult these days means having different sets of friends; at the very least, people from childhood and people from now. At the most, those plus college friends plus work friends plus church friends plus grad school friends plus neighbors plus your kids' friends' parents plus your parents' friends' kids plus God knows who else. Hello. This usually comes in handy and keeps things stimulating, but sometimes it hurts when I realize that set A won't get much chance to meet set B even though they would loooove each other. Hence my master plan for lotto time. Everyone together. Good food, music, bonfires and s'mores every night in the summer, hot chocolate when it's cold, bike rides, art time, books, and pets. Just enjoying each other's company, breathing it in, and laughing and crying until we can't remember which we were doing first.

Movies & Me

2011-08-07T16:59:00.000-07:00

During summer language school, the absence of one or two people can make a big difference. We had two people go out of town and several others occupied with out-of-town guests, so this weekend has been pretty laid back. Add the fact that we have no Hebrew class Monday or Tuesday, and you have a recipe for one of those aimless Saturdays in which the to-do list goes out the window. I went to a matinee of Friends with Benefits at lunchtime with friends, then I was going to Wal-Mart and one of them wanted to go with me. Listening to Disney songs in the car made her want to watch Enchanted, which I'd never seen, so I joined her. Then we went to a housewarming party and then watched the Sex and the City movie.

The evening before, we had watched Keeping the Faith. I don't know if I've watched that many movies in that short of a time span since John and Dad and I hunkered down for a Planet of the Apes marathon many years ago. (They cycled around and showed the first one again at the end. Pretty clever, considering the way they go.) These were all good movies, some surprisingly so, but my head and heart were spinning--in opposite directions--because they all had to do with love, and they all had very different messages about it.

*SPOILER ALERT!* Read no further if you're not interested in learning some key plot points of these movies.

In Keeping the Faith, Rabbi Ben Stiller and Catholic priest Edward Norton both get the hots for their childhood friend, Jenna Elfman from Dharma & Greg, who comes back to town after years away. She gets with Stiller, and Norton takes it hard but ends up happy. Aww! A story in which a main character is okay without a love interest! But that character has to be a priest. Grumble. Also, Stiller is supposed to be accountable to his congregation, and religious leaders should have very high standards for all behavior. This is addressed, but briefly and after the fact. I hadn't watched it since long before this round of seminary-thinking, and it was extremely different from this new perspective. When I said, "This is really funny from a seminarian's point of view," meaning funny-odd, my friend Aaron laughed and said, "News flash: A lot of things are funny from a seminarian's point of view."

In Friends with Benefits, Justin Timberlake (surprisingly good actor!) and Mila Kunis decide to have a lot of sex with no strings attached. It goes really well, and once they get tired of each other, they happily go their separate ways. HA! No, actually they hurt each other really badly and never want to be in communication again. What? Wrong again? You mean their plan works for a while, then their feelings get in the way and they fight, then they realize they're meant for each other? But romantic comedies never go that way! This is the point where I started to feel that head-heart counterspin, rolling my eyes at the cliches but also feeling comforted by the predictability, and hurting over the wrongness of the worldly lessons but feeling the pull of their indulgent non-logic. I really enjoyed the script and characters and actors, and the credit sequence was sweet, but how many times can you be told the same lies and like it? Especially when the lies are mixed with truth. Scary stuff. Also, Jenna Elfman was in it as J-Tim's sister, and he called her Annie Banannie. In Keeping the Faith, she was Anna Banana.

Enchanted had way fewer layers than any of the others, and less material that I rejected, and more singing and animals, and more cliches. A smooth, easy ride. He's a divorce lawyer? Obviously, that means he's jaded about love and the girl is going to un-jade him. They both have other love interests? 8 times out of 10, those two end up together too. A perfect square. After the other two movies, I was happy to watch something so simple, but because I had just watched them, it was anything but. It just presented another not-entirely-true, not-entirely-false point of view.

Sex and the City was by far the most confusing of the four for me, possibly because it was the last of the weekend. They did a great job not giving away too much in the previews, which made the plot twist an actual twist: Big doesn't show up to the wedding. Then he does, but by that time Carrie is so mad it's off. Both of them, and potentially a few others, are to blame, which is realistic and nice. Also, Steve cheats on Miranda, and Miranda leaves, but they end up back together. That's the part that really blew my mind. I always thought cheating is the end, but Steve said something that made me use all my mildest monosyllables of surprise: "Geez. Whoa. Man," and the like. He said he knew he broke a vow, but what about all those other vows? The ones they both made? For better or for worse? That surely qualifies as "worse." Again, responsibility is spread among multiple parties, and nothing is clean cut. Samantha leaves Smith because she's been with him for 5 years but she's been with herself for 49, "and that's the relationship I need to work on," she said. Mostly because she wanted to get with other guys. Especially in light of the Steve-and-Miranda storyline, that was a doozy. I heart Smith and hate that she left him, but isn't it better to leave someone than to cheat if the temptation is really strong and you don't trust yourself? If those are the only two options, though, I'd say you need to find some other options, such as STAY WITH THE PERSON YOU'RE COMMITTED TO AND DON'T CHEAT. In Samantha's case, to be clear, they're not married. Oh, and Carrie goes back to Big at the end, which I had mixed feelings about but it's a movie. In Friends with Benefits and this one, there was a point near the end when I wanted it to end, when they were apart and heartbroken, post-mistakes. I know people don't go to the movies to get a dose of reality, but sometimes I crave one. "And they were both miserable for a while and never saw each other again. The end." But I suppose we get enough of that outside the theater.

The whole shebang threw me off, not that my thoughts on love-n-such were super-well-developed to start with. I appreciate the opportunity to think in different ways about it, and all of the movies were good as entertainment, just not as lessons, I guess. Some parts were good lessons but hard ones, such as forgiveness. I'm very blessed to have people to watch with, and a place to watch, and the leisure time necessary to watch 4 movies in about 26 hours. The best part is that I know where to look to (re-)learn the truth about love. So the movies, when it comes down to it, for all my verbosity and anxiety and analysis and attention, they're just for fun. A place for everything, and everything in its place.

Wedding Report #2: Laura & Javier

2011-08-05T14:19:00.000-07:00

I left Richmond just after class on Friday afternoon and caught a ride to the airport with some generous friends who were on their way out of town. Got some quality flash-card time in the airport before leaving. A connection too short to speak of in Atlanta, and before I knew it I was in Houston. It turned out the two people I was meeting, other friends of the bride, both had long delays, so I hung out with The Member of the Wedding, my journal, and the flash cards from about 6:30 til almost ten. The two delayed ones were very apologetic, but it was quite nice to sit undisturbed, with plenty of people to watch, none who had any demands on me and none I wanted to impress. The book was good--I guess I'm a fan of Southern gothic without knowing it until now.

I came up with a new career idea: airport chaplain. I found out later in the trip that this does exist. As Mom said when I told her, it's perfect because I wouldn't have to form any lasting relationships. "Yeah, you get to help people without anyone critiquing your sermon or the seating arrangement or anything," I said. Half-jokes aside, it would be a very neat opportunity. I've been noticing a lot of changes in myself lately, which I suppose is a by-product of a geographic and life-stage move. One of them became evident when I was people-watching in Houston: I've always liked to watch people, but it used to be because I was interested in them or curious about them. I still am, but now I also love them. A lot. All of them.

New Friend #1 got in just before ten, then #2 came from Houston's other airport after midnight, and we got to the house we were staying at after 2 a.m. On Saturday, we left just after lunchtime to find our hotel and change clothes before the 3:00 wedding. Everything happened in both Spanish and English because the groom is from Mexico, and the church was really pretty and the couple was really pretty and there was great rejoicing.

At the reception, I got to catch up with a few old Davidson friends and meet a few new ones, learn a new dance that involves a napkin, and enjoy great food and drink and the precious people at our table. Toasts and other announcements were bilingual there too. A few people went out afterward since it was only 8:00, and Laura in her wedding dress got congratulations from strangers, as all brides should.

On Sunday morning, from our patio table at brunch, we watched some unfamiliar birds swarm a recently-vacated table and scavenge the food. We went back to Laura and Javier's apartment, where we looked at pictures and they opened a few gifts. We went to the Art Car Museum, which was scary like many museums are for me and fun and funny like more museums should be. I went to the market and the bakery with Laura, and we looked at her Enneagram book and Amy Sedaris's I Like You and geography games online inspired by their world-map shower curtain. I started reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and we had French food for dinner and then bubble tea and an outdoor showing of Othello, which I had taught but still didn't follow. The grass was clipped very short, and there was a well-behaved corgi in front of us, and I couldn't tell the characters apart, and it didn't matter. We talked about patriotism and national holidays and how on Mexican independence day the mayor of each town goes out at midnight shouting "Viva Mexico!" and everyone shouts back.

Monday, I ate a really good cream-cheese empanada and we were off. During my long layover in Atlanta, a French family sat down next to me and stayed long enough that I worked up the courage to talk to them in French. The aunt/sister is a CPA in Richmond, has been for ten years. I had forgotten how quietly French people can talk. Sitting across from them, I heard their conversation as little but a soothing murmur. When I got home, I signed up for the Richmond French Meetup Group, yet another joy of being in a big city.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and delightful. Yet another kind and generous friend picked me up, and I had Facebook messages saying people had missed me, and hugs in real life, and a lot to catch up on even though it had only been three days. What a great blessing, to go see something beautiful and new and then come home to warmth and love.

The New Reality

2011-07-25T18:10:00.000-07:00

Summer language school is accelerated. A lot. It's not one but two semesters of Greek or Hebrew squeezed into about six weeks. This has been, so far, a good way for me to learn. I like it very much. There's a side effect to that acceleration: it works the same way in our social lives. I think I anticipated this in some vague form, but I had no clue what a blast it would be. I use the word "blast" both in its slangy form to mean "a really fun time" and in its closer-to-literal form to mean "an explosion, a sudden movement, a momentary unleashing." "Whirlwind" would be appropriate as well.

We do this because some of us are scared (not me, not really), all of us are starting anew, for a few days we were a little bored and unmoored, and since class started we've embodied the "work hard, play hard" mentality. Friday afternoons we are as restless and frightening as caged animals, and when we load up the cars to go wherever we go, or pour into someone's apartment, the energy is frenetic and loose and fast and wild until Sunday evening when the Greek students buckle down to study. (Hebrew doesn't meet on Mondays, but we also begin to wind down about then.) We talk over movies and over each other. We make ourselves known in church. We are unignorable. We travel in packs. We are well matched in darts. We learn from everything, and we are always thirsty and we are always full. We have so much steam it takes three days to let it off, and then we have none for four.

During the week, the pace is smooth and almost lethargic in the best way. There is yoga and swimming and groceries and a series of foods I aim to eat each day and each week. The classroom is cold and the breaks are long. My stack of flashcards will soon be as tall as my hand, the long way. The rhythm in which we gather and disperse is like a slow and reliable breathing. Everything shines, but it does not hurt my eyes. When I felt sad for the first time since moving here, I said to myself, "Oh no, reality is setting in," but then I said, "That is not reality. The new reality is this." My cup overflows with joy and peace and freedom from fear and friends and health and love.

There's a Hebrew word you say when you drink coffee with someone. It means not only "thank you," but "forever and ever," as in, "May this state of affairs last forever and ever. We are not being chased, we are not at war, we are not starving, we are enjoying this together and we would like it to last." Unfortunately, I do not actually know the word. But that is precisely how I feel. May this last forever and ever. Amen.

A Word about HP

2011-07-15T14:29:00.000-07:00

And you can probably guess I'm not talking about Hewlett Packard.

I started reading the Harry Potter books on a trip to the beach with my family. I must have been in 7th or 8th grade (maybe 6th?), but Mom read chapters to me and John before bed. No one else knew about the book, really. It still had British spellings, and I loved the starry display font, which I copied over and over like a monk. Those first few books were sweet. Just adventurous enough, endearing, heartwarming. Once they caught on, we congratulated ourselves on having been among the first to know. The books started getting more scary and grown-up, and then came the movies. When the first movie came out, it was almost exactly as I pictured it: the colors, the visual style, the characters.

Last night, I watched the last movie in the series. My new friends from seminary went as a group. It was very good, perhaps in part because I'd forgotten many of the details and even major plot points. The acting and/or directing had clearly improved since #4, which I watched last weekend. But more than the movie itself, I'll remember the experience of watching it, the collective "oohs" and "ahhs," the swells of laughter, the sniffles in the dark. These moments have their origins in the earliest fireside storytelling, which was probably about what happened on the hunt that day and, like HP, may have involved fangs and fire. Ever since then, there's nothing like a good story heard in good company to make a person feel just right.

I have my issues with the series. The resemblances to Lord of the Rings are almost embarrassing at times. It's frustrating that made-up magic has limitations (as in, "Why can't you just do a spell and end the suspense?"). The intricacy, while stimulating, is also sometimes exhausting. I have a lot of muggle blood that makes me scoff and say the whole thing is stupid and childish. But my heart softens when I think of the collective enjoyment of this series. I've long thought that TV and books and movies were part of the collective consciousness Jung talked about, because we can meet someone for the first time and find quite a bit in common based on such things. I'm happy that I'm the right age to have Harry in my world. I'm happy that the series is so successful. And I'm thrilled that young children will continue to read, there and elsewhere, about risk and reward, loyalty, sacrifice, bravery, and the deeply moving truth that, in the end, the good guys always win.

Lundi Links: Sweet Charity, the Animal Edition

2011-07-11T20:21:00.000-07:00

Lundi Links is back after a long hiatus! I'm sure you've been wringing your hands over its unpredictability.

Today's theme is animal-related causes you can donate to or just learn about. First, we have HeroRATS, who use their super-smelling to seek out landmines, tuberculosis, and more.

Then there's the Carolina Raptor Center, which I never visited even though it was just steps from my door at Davidson! Not literally, but it was pretty close. They take care of injured birds and do education work. Similarly, Carolina Tiger Rescue is taking care of the big cats right near Pittsboro. Pretty cool, huh?

I completely understand when people say resources should go toward people before we worry about animals, but I want to highlight these organizations because, well, it's just cool. The next one, the big one, is not part of that argument because it uses animals to help people. Presenting The Heifer Project, my all-time favorite charitable organization! I wanted to work for them abroad after college, but it turned out they only employed locals. Let down as I was, I couldn't complain. Of course they should! That way, the people who are running the operation know the area, the land, the people, and the customs, and there's less of that icky white-man-coming-in-to-fix-things feeling. Plus, that job means much more to a poor local than it does to some post-college ne'er-do-well who wants an adventure. Seriously smart move, Heifer.

The organization, also called Heifer International, provides animals to communities who make proposals to them. That way, Heifer doesn't dictate what the community needs; they decide what will work and how they want to go about it. All the animals are used for something sustainable, like milk or wool or honey or eggs. They range in size from bees to elephants. The first animal donated was a heifer (a cow that hasn't had babies yet), and the recipients ate it. Understandable! They were hungry! But it's sort of a give-a-man-a-fish situation, and Heifer is all about teaching them to fish, so to speak. Since then, they make sure to train all recipients in how to take advantage of the animals' gifts over the long term.

I worked at Heifer's educational farm in California for a few weeks (my consolation prize for not being able to go somewhere more exotic), during which my admiration for the organization grew and grew. I really want to write a book about Heifer someday, possibly combined with other humanitarian projects that work really well and make sense.

You can be a volunteer at one of Heifer's farms in Arkansas or Massachusetts (I believe the Cali one has closed or transitioned to some other use, but I could be wrong), either on a live-in basis or as a local who comes in during the day. If your Christmases or your friends' birthdays have been a little "eh" on the gift side, think about giving donations in honor of someone, to Heifer or to any organization. I personally love picking out animals that someone will like. Baby chicks never fail to delight.

When I lived at the Heifer farm, our dining-room table and chairs had been won on The Price Is Right and donated to the center. We had a piano in the house, so I had my parents send me a bunch of sheet music and almost got the hang of "Hey Jude." We had chickens, ducks, geese, a water buffalo, goats, an ostrich, turkeys, a heifer, sheep, alpacas, and a few cats that were unaffiliated with the project. The ostrich, Sweet Pea, was like something George Lucas and Jim Henson would make together. The turkeys sounded like old church ladies at the end of the barn. The goats were my favorite, and I'd love to have one someday. Sheep are really stupid, alpacas extremely aloof, and when all of the animals were together, I got to feeling just a little jealous of Noah.

Bluegrass Mass

2011-07-10T20:03:00.001-07:00

This evening, I biked to an Episcopal church for Bluegrass Mass. This week it was all Carter family songs, including "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" and "This Train Is Bound for Glory." I felt like I was listening to Dusty and Ace, at an intimate Avett Brothers concert, and a little bit Taize and Seagrove all at once. Tov, tov, tov. Tov m'od. (That means "very good" in Hebrew.) They handed out tambourines for the last song! And I ran into a classmate from The Personal Essay, AKA The Class That Changed Everything. I took it in my last year at Davidson, and without it I never would have thought about grad school for creative writing. So it was tov m'od to see her. And on the way to the church, I saw what appeared to be a family's pool that was open to the community, with an entry booth and everything. There's something really delightful about seeing people walking along the sidewalk with towels slung over their shoulders. Kind of like seeing cars full of adults--I always guess they're going somewhere fun.

Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me comes on at 3 p.m. on Sunday, and This American Life and Car Talk are nowhere in sight. Don't they know the three are supposed to go together, preferably on Saturday mornings? I broke my French press and had to buy another one. Something stung me, and I didn't get a good look at it. I couldn't find any shorts in my size when Old Navy was having a big sale, even looking at two different locations. It feels like I will never know my way around the city. I miss Wilmington and the people there like crazy. I found out I was supposed to sign up for classes, like, a month ago. But a bad day in seminary...pretty much better than any other day.

Ha ha! I knew I got that last sentence, minus the "seminary," from something else, so I just looked it up. Joey said it to Ross on Friends about a threesome. "Your worst day with two women...pretty much better than any other day." So I guess I'm as happy about seminary as some people are about (the idea of) being with two women. But as I was saying, I feel unfaseable. Boundlessly joyful. These things do make me grumpy, but it's like, "Eh. Not that big a deal." Because I'm still riding the wave of novelty and excitement from being in a new place with new people and new routines.

Most of all, I feel satisfied in a way that only living in a big city can make me feel satisfied. Solitary and social, mellow and frenetic, I feel like all my moods are allowed and taken care of when I have so many choices, even if I'm not yet taking advantage of them and don't even know what they are. At the Bluegrass Mass, the overwhelming feeling was of a deep hunger I didn't know I had, finally being satisfied. It's more than just feeling sophisticated and cosmopolitan or watching my calendar fill up with cool things; it feels, actually, like swaddling. There's something comforting about having businesses near my home, people always about but not always interacting with me, being able to walk and actually get somewhere worth going. I'll wish for a change soon enough, but for today, the Dixie Chicks can have their wide open spaces. As excited as I was to come here, I never expected to be this happy. Thank you, God, for this place and this day.

Ta-Da!

2011-07-05T19:04:00.001-07:00

Here I am in scenic, humid, friendly, unfamiliar, bustling Richmond, in my very own apartment, with three Hebrew books stacked in front of me, tummy full of strawberry shortcake (party at the dean's house) and chai tea (that's all me), knowing I ought to go to bed because orientation is tomorrow morning but unable to stop bopping from excitement.

We got here on Friday afternoon with generous help from Luke, Michele, and Tom on the Wilmington end. I overshot the exit from 95, but the exit I did take had signs that led me straight to the seminary. What up! Beautiful strangers helped unpack the truck, and as we returned it to the rental place, we saw fireworks. Mom and Dad spent the night and were very helpful and fun on Saturday. I'm just now feeling settled and able to take a deep breath, with internet connected (that's the "ta-da!"), books bought, pictures hung, and everything in its place for the moment. I have more space than one person really needs, and it's glorious. Five closets, a study, and an extra room that's intended for storage but is the art and reading room.

The neighborhood is stunning. Impressive houses with eclectic lawns, a purple flower I'm not familiar with that smells great, a walking trail just behind us, and I just found out, a gym across the street! I saw the most enticing garden party on my walk the other night. White tablecloths down to the ground, including on the bar. Every direction I go has new nice sights, and I plan to go farther and farther each way until it's not so nice. In a more immediate sense, my place is a prime location for harmless spying. Not exactly Rear Window because all I see of the next building is a brick wall, but I'm all about monitoring the sidewalk.

In eating news, the "New town, new habits" philosophy is going swimmingly. I've been crazy good for all 3 and a half days since Mom and Dad left! Seriously, I think I can keep it up. There are clothes I brought with me that I can't wear at present, in which I will soon look snazzy, because I didn't lug 'em here for nothin'.

I like everyone I've met, I can't wait to meet the rest, and I've even had a visitor already! Heather, my roommate from Wilmington, came by on her way back from her parents' in Maryland. I got to say hi to her pet frog, grab a coffee at Starbucks, and hear about her summer tutoring.

And it was very, very good.

Gratitude

2011-06-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

I got back from church camp on Friday around lunchtime. The week was full of bugbites, humidity, delicious food, swimming in a lake that turns everything brown, very little time alone, the danger of stinging nettles, and SO MUCH FUN! I can't think of a better way to say (a temporary) goodbye to Pine Valley and to coastal North Carolina. My cabin was full of wonderful, fun girls, the other counselors were a great help, and I never stop marveling at how smart, faithful, fun, and self-sufficient our youth are. Thank you, everyone at Pine Valley, for making the week and the past three years such a delightful and challenging experience.

One of the highlights of the week was serving communion on the dock. I'd served once before at church and loved it. You get to look each person in the eyes and say, "This is the body of Christ, broken for you." (Or, if you're serving the juice, "This is the blood of Christ, shed for you.") One kid had the kid behind him take a picture, with a flash, which threw me off and made me laugh. Alex was playing the guitar behind us for ambience. Randy was serving the grape juice to my left. A perfect evening. Does anyone know whether a Presbyterian pastor would be allowed to serve communion in that style (people come up to the front instead of staying in their seats)? I think so. I hope so.

It didn't hit me until the next day that I can look forward to doing that kind of thing in my regular life. This also happened the day I got my first acceptance to a seminary, when I went to an MFA event and a professor told me all about how he grew up in the church and what made him leave it. "I'm going to get to have conversations like this all the time!" I thought. What an honor.

As I prepare to move on Friday, my calendar is filling up with lunches and dinners and other last hurrahs. Another cause for great rejoicing; I have so many great friends and so many great places to go and enjoy unique food. As hard as it is to leave, I try to keep in mind that you don't cry because a chapter ends (unless, as Ashley pointed out, it's the chapter in Harry Potter where Dumbledore dies, even though in that case you're not crying just because the chapter's over). You process it and get excited about the next chapter. So instead of moping about leaving (mostly), I look at Richmond churches' websites and the YMCA yoga schedule and my school email account and everything else that helps me focus on the possibilities and the growth to come. And I thank God for everything.

Photos from Wedding #1, Lauren and Paul

2011-06-08T19:08:00.000-07:00

If you want to see some more photos, the public link to my FB album is http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150652364300243.688552.890485242&=16a19bed75. Here are a few others.

The church.

The carriage ride.

The cake cutting. As I took many pictures of this, I was standing next to some teenagers who worked at the winery. I asked if they had a lot of weddings, and they said they were booked for 68 weeks. I said, "But this is the best one, right?" They said, "She is really pretty."

Some of the views we're talkin' about. Who knew this was in Missouri? I would seriously go back just for the heck of it.

Lauren's grandfather playing the clarinet at the brewery. He also played at the rehearsal dinner a little bit.

The sweet puppy at the brewery.

Wedding Report #1: Paul and Lauren

2011-06-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

I left on Thursday morning for Raleigh, parked at my aunt's house, and rode with her and her cousin and my granddaddy to the airport, where we met Mom, Dad, John (my brother), and Allison (his girlfriend). It was my first experience with the full-body scanner, even though I flew in March. They had to pat me down because of the underwire in my bra. Hooray! We had a direct flight to St. Louis, where our hotel was really awesome and I forgot to take pictures like I meant to, especially of the sign "Limousine parking only."

We had dinner in the hotel, which was actually quite good. Several others joined us, including the bride and groom. The young people planned to go out, but we ended up sending a party to the store for beer and drinking in the hotel atrium instead, which was great fun. Between deciding to go out and deciding to stay in, we called a cab, which arrived the minute we found out we were staying. The driver was not nice.

The next morning, after a delicious hotel buffet breakfast, we left around noon for St. Genevieve, about an hour and a half from St. Louis. On the way, we got to see a little bit of the city, and I liked it. The vineyard where we had the wedding is in really nice rolling-hills country, one of five or six vineyards there actually. I didn't know anything about Missouri and was kind of blown away by how pretty it was. Our car (Dad, me, Allison, and John) got there first, so we went to a brewery down the street and up a very curvy one-lane gravel driveway. At the brewery, there were an uncanny number of dead moths or moth wings in the yard, which was pretty but kind of creepy. Then we saw a nice kitty. I figure the cat was getting the moths. They had a beer called barleywine that was like a beer-wine hybrid. A larger group ended up going back later that evening, and John pointed out that they had homemade root beer. I figured I'd have just a try to see how it was--why would I need a whole glass?--but it was SO GOOD that I had to get it. Really. If you ever go to Charleville Brewery and Vineyard near St. Genevieve, Missouri, get the root beer. And the barleywine. And the winerita. And the strawberry beer if it's summer. And, well, pretty much everything. On the second trip, some of the bride's family was there too, and her granddad played the clarinet in the background. There was also a nice dog and pretty stained glass.

That night, those who were in the wedding went to the rehearsal, and then the rest of us met them at the rehearsal dinner in the winery's cellar, lined with barrels and nice and cool after a hot day. Allison and I were standing near a table with only one couple at it, deciding whether to sit there. I thought, "Surely these people can hear us talking about whether we're going to sit with them," so I said, "These people look nice. Let's sit here." So my nuclear family joined Elizabeth and Brian. Once we determined that we were all on Paul's side (although we're just as much on Lauren's side, too!), Mom said, "Oh, you're Elizabeth from summer P.E.!" Apparently, Paul and Elizabeth did not go to the same high school but both had to take P.E. in the summer, and they would walk around the track together, and they became friends. So my mom says, "Which high school did you go to?" and Elizabeth says, "Enloe." And I think, "I know only one girl who went to Enloe. And her name was Elizabeth. And she looks not at all unlike this one." So I say, "What's your last name?" because I am creepy like that and remember the last names and high schools of people I knew for a week twelve or more years ago. And she said it and yep, it was my roommate from summer writing camp at Queens College the summer after eighth grade. She lives in Chicago now, and she's marrying Brian in October. We had fun.

The next morning, Mom and I were hostesses of the bridesmaids' brunch in Lauren's villa. Oh, I didn't tell you, everyone stayed in villas, which are nice houses with good views decorated in the French Country manner, and so much more fun than a hotel. So we went to the girls' villa, and the winery staff delivered chicken salad sandwiches and chicken cordon bleu sandwiches and strawberry turnovers and homemade potato chips and dip and coffee the makings for mimosas. The hairdresser was working on Lauren when we got there, and everyone else took turns getting hair did or stepping out to the spa for makeup. Meanwhile, we enjoyed the good food and decorated handkerchiefs with Sharpies, because some ideas sound a little weird but turn out to be really good. The rationale: people will probably need to wipe their eyes at a wedding. Some probably don't have hankies. It's nice to have a party favor. It's fun to draw together. Voila! A good thing. I've still got mine in my purse.

After changing clothes, taking pics of Lauren in her dress, and semi-helping get the couple's villa ready for that night, I took up my post in the chapel vestibule. I got to see the string quartet pass a cello up into the balcony. As I handed out programs, one guy was making a funny noise as he came in, and we realized he had a cicada on him! We shooed him outside, and when he came back he said it had been inside his jacket.

A note on the chapel: It was about to be demolished, and the vineyard said, "We want it." So they dismantled it and brought it onto the grounds and rebuilt it, or something to that effect. It was teeeeeeny tiny and very cute.

The service was lovely but probably the least memorable part of the weekend for me. Funny how that works. Afterward, Paul and Lauren rode away in a horse-drawn carriage under a barrage of bubbles. Then we took a few family pictures and went to the reception. I was seated with Elizabeth and Brian again, plus some friends of Lauren's from her study abroad in France who were also Christian and might want to be missionaries and were excited about my going to seminary. After dinner and the best-tasting wedding cake I've ever had, I danced a lot and took blurry pictures and laughed and danced and laughed.

The next morning, we went straight to the airport even though our flight wasn't til 8 p.m. We were too tired to figure out what to do in St. Louis. It was actually quite nice to read and chill in the airport. I watched the first two episodes of Modern Family on Mom's iPad. The flight was uneventful except that we had a really funny flight attendant, and at the end when the seatbelt light went off, he said, "All rise." I slept at Aunt Kim's house for about 11 hours, then drove home and started my last week of work.

To sum up the weekend, I was felt up by a TSA agent, angered a Russian cab driver, slept on a couch with two towels and a tuxedo jacket for covers, ruined my watchband by sweating, lost a shoe for twelve hours, had no time to relax, did not have a date, broke a wineglass and cut my finger trying to clean it up, semi-flirted with a guy and then realized he was with someone, disagreed with part of the pastor's meditation, and worst of all, had to listen to "Beverly Hills" by Weezer. Really, is that what you play when someone requests Weezer? Including all of this, it was the best weekend I've had in a long, long time. Thank you, Lauren and Paul, for getting married. Thank you, Mom and Dad and Kim, for taking us there. Thank you, John and John and Allison and David and Caroline and everyone else, for making it so fun. Someone should get married at least once a month. Oh, wait! That is the case! Now I'm gearing up for Laura and Javier in July.

I'm going to put photos in a separate post. Stay tuned!

Lundi Links: Sweet Charity

2011-05-30T19:33:00.001-07:00

This week's Lundi Links features some of the sites that show the internet's power for good. These sites connect those with money to donate with those who need it. I have a long list of sites of specific organizations I'd like to help, but the ones I'm posting today are the ones that serve as directories or connections between many individuals or groups. To be clear, I haven't used these sites yet myself, but I have heard good things about most of them.

http://www.donorschoose.org is a very popular site where teachers can ask for funding for micro-projects: one set of books, supplies for one chemistry experiment, etc. I'm sure some of them are a bit bigger, but I love the simplicity and specificity of it, almost a poetry.

http://www.kickstarter.com is a little like donorschoose but helps fund small businesses, inventions, and creative projects. I've read up on a documentary about Matthew Shepard, a stylus tip that attaches to a regular Sharpie to make it easy to draw on an iPad, and funky drink koozies called Freakers (ILM-born!). Most of the requests have videos, and many have rewards that increase with the amount you donate.

http://www.razoo.com is a little like kickstarter but for nonprofits.

http://www.kiva.org is your path to being a microfinancer. The site partners with existing microfinance organizations (which are an inspiring and brilliant concept in themselves, although I seem to recall hearing something bad about one recently, like it went under or something?) to get small amounts of money into the hands of folks all over the world who can turn it into more resources for themselves, their families, and their communities. You can loan in $25 increments, and I believe you have a choice of receiving the money back or keeping it circulating in the Kiva system. It's incredible what these "small" amounts can do in most parts of the world.

http://www.modestneeds.org lets individuals post a specific need at a specific amount. A new muffler, travel expenses for a conference, a fan for a sick child in the coming summer, things that cost money but not astronomical amounts and that will make big improvements to the people's lives. There's some kind of point system involved.

There are several sites that keep track of charities and their activities so you know they're on the up and up (love that brand identity at Target, by the way, pipes up the designer in me). I haven't used these at all, but a couple of them for your perusal are http://www2.guidestar.org, http://www.charitynavigator.org, and http://www.charitywatch.org.

The internet, like pretty much everything, has the capacity for the most wretched evil and the most elevating good. I am so impressed with humanity when I see sites like these, how they bring strangers together for just a few minutes and a few dollars to help each other and the world. What a beautiful thing! I'm going to make a $1 donation right now. I hope you'll consider trying one of these sites.

Nearly Perfect Weekend (so far!)

2011-05-29T18:42:00.000-07:00

We had an early deadline on Thursday (it's usually Friday at 5), so I treated this as a 4-day weekend. The first three have been a perfect balance of social time and downtime, and all of it has felt like a real live weekend, not one of those fake ones where it's not relaxing.

On Friday, I slept in, made iced coffee instead of regular and it was good even though I was quite winging it, went to the beach and read and wrote and swam, and hit the Mayfaire concert with the Martins. There are two free concerts every Friday in the summer in Wilmington. Downtown Sundown is crowded, loud, and kind of a meat-market situation (i.e., singles looking for things singles look for). I like some of the music, and if you're in the mood it's nice. This was the first time I'd gone to the Mayfaire one (Mayfaire is like Birkdale, for Davidson folk: a Truman Show-like community where people live but there are also stores, restaurants, a movie theater, etc.). It was much more chill, and people had picnics, lawn chairs, dogs, kids, and fun. Andrew, who's two years old and change, was incredibly cute as always. The band played "Wagon Wheel" and "What I Got," two of my top songs to hear in such a sitch. It wasn't even too hot! A lovely evening. I had been considering going to the movies and decided I would, but I had over an hour to kill, so I went to the Fox and Hound to have a beer and an appetizer. I sat down and before I could even open my book, what to my wondering eyes should appear but Karen and Bob Scheboth at the next table! So I moved to sit with them, and we had fun while waiting for their son, Travis, to finish up at the movies.

I saw Bridesmaids, which was very funny and a very realistic portrayal of a friendship between two women. As my friend pointed out the next morning, it is, in her words, "raunchy." It's true there's a lotta sex in it, which did make me kind of roll my eyes (like when Jaded Lady says to Naive Lady, "Every woman needs those slutty college years!"). Unfortunately, I think I've come to view that as the price of watching a silly comedy. The movie actually made me not like Jon Hamm's character! And the other guy, Chris O'Dowd, is now my main leading man. He's from Ireland. On Facebook, he is set up as a regular person you friend and not a star that you "like," and you know how many friends he has? 33!

Saturday morning, I had breakfast at The Sawmill with Lindsey, then I came back here and cleaned up my inbox and favorites (bookmarks), which took a lot of time and felt great. I went for a leisurely walk instead of a run.

Today, I turned on the TV while making lunch and landed on Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde. After that on the same channel, it was The Whole Nine Yards. After that, Fun with Dick and Jane. So, I more or less watched three movies in a row in my recliner. I definitely don't want to do that every day or even every week, but it was exactly the right thing for today. Tomorrow is a day off, but I do intend to do a few light work things since I'm leaving Thursday for cousin Paul's wedding! Yaaaay!

The kind of thing that makes my day

2011-05-26T13:38:00.001-07:00

, or at least my hour, is often in the category of funny cars. Beer also works wonders on occasion. So this was pretty big.

Dejeuner du Jour

2011-05-24T11:22:00.001-07:00

This is what I had for lunch today. Under the lettuce and homemade dressing (!) are raisins, glazed walnuts, and feta, to be tossed within moments. The yellow circle on the plate is a tiny cheese sealed in wax. I am posting it because I'm quite pleased with myself, especially because yesterday was an eat-everything-in-sight kind of day.

Thank you for your attention. That is all.

Spam-a-Lot

2011-05-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time, I have been majorly spammed. Did I click on anything suspicious? Not that I remember. However it happened, it did. So, please, please, please do not click on any links you receive in emails from me in the next couple of days. Ugh, I just feel icky, like I need another shower. Gross. Also, I do not know much about spam, so I did only what Google prompted me to do, which was just change my password. It's crazy awesome and un-guessable now. Is there anything else I need to do? Please let me know if you get any other sketch-o emails from me, and I apologize a lot if the episode has affected your account or computer at all.

I checked my work email before my personal one this morning, like a good little drone, and when I saw an email from myself, my stomach really dropped. Then when I checked my gmail, nearly every message was from someone who'd gotten a slice of spam from me. It was actually kind of nice to see the names of so many people who are in my contacts but whom I hadn't talked to in a while.

Various Musings

2011-05-20T20:12:00.000-07:00

I missed the first half of The Soup tonight, which was okay, but then after it, this awful show about hoaxes (or something) came on! It was one of those bandage-face people! Where was Fashion Police?! We didn't know. So I went to 27 because it's first on my channel-flipping rotation (27, 35, 39, 40, 45, 55, 58, 65, 66, 76. Wanna guess what they are?), and it was Mamma Mia! at about halfway through. I like it. Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Meryl Streep together? Yes, please? And did I mention Colin Firth? So that's what I'm doing as I type this.

News flash: the world is not ending tomorrow. The guy who says that, and organizes the people to put up the billboards, etc., he said it was happening in 1994. Somehow, he retained his followers or got new ones even after that fail. His explanation was that he hadn't read parts of the Bible closely enough.

A five-year study published by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice has revealed the cause of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy members. Homosexuality and celibacy are not the causes, they said very emphatically. The reason many, many Catholic leaders have molested children is THE UPHEAVAL OF THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES. No joke. That's what the study said. Its detractors call it "The Woodstock Defense." I appreciate that they don't want to demonize homosexuality or celibacy, but really? Everyone went through those decades, and very few people reacted by sexually abusing children. My theory on why the study took five years is that they came up with an answer after one or two, and someone didn't like the answer (I don't recall whether the study was commissioned by the Church), and they took the remaining years to come up with something, and because the funding was running out, they panicked and said what they said. I think it offends my intelligence. To be clear, I haven't read the study and don't know many details. I suppose there could be some more-convinving evidence. But just from what I know now, I'm very disappointed in everyone involved.

I woke up the other morning with a book in my bed. It was Understanding Comics. I hadn't read it in months. It's second-closest on the bookshelf right next to the bed, which makes it not completely bizarre, but I had no recollection of taking it from the shelf or wanting to. I figure I was grabbing for something in a dream and grabbed the book in real life.

This afternoon, I was thinking of what to wear tomorrow and remembered a shirt I hadn't worn in a few weeks. Then this evening, as I shook out my clean sheets while making the bed, I found that shirt wrinkled up in one of the corners of the fitted sheet! It had been folded up in the closet with the sheets for weeks. I laughed out loud.

I've been seeing things a little differently as seminary draws near. For instance, the management section at Barnes & Noble suddenly means at least a little something to me. Not that I'm all "I'm a manager of the church," but surely some of those books have valuable lessons for leaders of all stripes, and I guess a leader is what I'm gonna be. This may stem partly from the fact that I've seen the management book Good to Great on many pastors' shelves, specifically in the summer of 2005, which made me think the conference or district I was in at the time had all the pastors read it. I remember being surprised but interested in how it was used.

I got a tiny Hebrew lesson from my roommate today, which gave me an idea of how much I'm going to be learning this summer. I'm slowly shedding books, papers, clothes, and other items to prepare for the move. Three more weeks of work! Then a big party, camp, logistics galore, packing, and we're off. Thank and praise God.

Janus Jesus

2011-05-10T09:45:00.000-07:00

I had a really, really good time at my parents' house last weekend, as I almost always do there. If any young people are reading this, please take note that this is what happens when you grow up, probably. There's a good chance your parents will become exponentially more fun once you're out of the house, etc.

As I mentioned in my post from there, we watched both Godspell and Jesus Christ, Superstar because they were kind enough to hold onto them on DVR for a couple weeks. I had seen Godspell as a live show numerous times, including the time I was in it (what?! That's right), but never the movie. I had never seen JCS but knew some of the music because we have the songbook for piano and there was a time when I'd play almost anything for fun. Sidebar: I really look forward to working in churches because I'll pretty much always have access to a piano. Look out, Broadway! Or Rum Runners!

There were many cool things about watching these back to back. First, the movies came out in the same year! 1973. It's like Antz and A Bug's Life, or Armageddon and Deep Impact, or 30Rock and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, or ER and Chicago Hope, which are all eerily similar for things that came out at the same time. These two movies are similar on that level, of course, but very different. JCS focuses a lot on the persecution Jesus faced, Judas is a major character, and you get quite a lot of the minor key. Godspell is like the rainbow-sunshine version of the story. It has serious moments and is thought-provoking at points, but it's mostly just an enjoyable and fun experience.

This is where Janus comes in. Janus is the Roman god of transitions and beginnings, and hence of doorways, gates, doors, endings, and time, according to Wikipedia. He is usually depicted with two faces, facing in opposite directions. I'm reminded of him when I think of Godspell and JCS together, because Jesus does have two sides, and then some. But the cool thing is, as far as I can tell, it's the same face repeated. Janus is not like Jekkyl and Hyde or Twoface, with one good and one bad side. So, the past and the future are both good. Jesus persecuted and Jesus rejoicing are both good. That's what makes him different from all other gods, who usually have one salient characteristic. He's a round character, like the people you know, a collection of traits that form a real man.

Another cool thing: Playing Jesus in Godspell was Victor Garber, whom you'll recognize as one of those actors with a solid body of work and few starring roles. What makes it cool, besides just knowing it and how young he is, is that he played the devil in Damn Yankees.

In other trivia, the guy who played Caiaphas in JCS was in a 1993 film called The Nostril Picker. The actor who played Peter also has a career in pornography. There was a 2000 version, and something is in the works for 2014. Exciting!

Also, I read in the archives for work about a musical called Cotton Patch Gospel, which is Jesus' life set in the south. Joe and Mary are headed to Atlanta for a tax audit and, when there's no room at the motel, they have to give birth in a mobile home in Gainesville, Georgia. "Men don't live by grits alone," he will grow up to say. The music is by Harry Chapin. This sounds promising. Has anyone seen it?

Lundi Links: Useful

2011-05-09T18:09:00.000-07:00

Under this category in my Favorites are mostly boring things like my bank and Mapquest and the Weather Channel; you can figure out what you need in that department. But there are a few that you may not know about, things that have come in quite handy.

At http://www.icantfindmyphone.com, you can type in your phone number, and it'll ring for you as you poke around the house playing the hotter-colder game with yourself.

http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com is a pretty ingenious concept. If you have trouble getting to a site, you type in the URL and it tells you whether it's your problem. If only there were a site like that for personal problems.

At http://www.oneacross.com, you can type in the clue that's stumping you in a crossword puzzle, plus the pattern (like, "refined" and "cl***y"). You'll get a list of possible answers rated by likelihood. Whether this is useful, because it aids a relatively non-useful pastime, is debatable, but I like it.

Another site of debatable usefulness, and one I've never actually used but is a cool concept: http://www.filleritem.com helps you find something to get you just over the $25 mark on Amazon so you can get free shipping. Or you could join Amazon Prime and always have it. Or, shop at used book sales instead.

That's it for today. Check back for more Lundi Links next Monday, and maybe a regular post or two in the meantime.

Parents' for the Weekend

2011-05-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

I cleared my calendar for today and came to Henderson last night so I didn't have to drive all day on Sunday for the brunch extravaganza. My grandmother's turning 80, my brother's 26, and both Munno (that's the grandmother) and Mom are being celebrated for Mothers' Day. So I get to spend the weekend here, watching recorded episodes of The Office and 30Rock (and Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar! God bless DVR), running the shorter but hillier route I've walked or run my whole life, addressing invitations for my cousin's rehearsal dinner, filling the birdfeeders, and playing with Mom's iPad. What a great time we have.

I checked my Union (seminary) email to see if they'd told me about housing. Not yet, but there were multiple emails with prayer requests and praises: this person is getting married, that person's mom has cancer. Also, in the two classes that I visited, the professors asked for prayer requests and prayed before starting class. Manhattan and Austin and Princeton and Frisco are great places to visit; I am going to the perfect place for me. I haven't counted the days yet, but I know it's less than two months until Hebrew class starts. Life is good.

Lundi Links: Art and Visuals

2011-05-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

Today's focus for Lundi Links is the sites that make me go "ooh" and "ah" in a purely visual sense.

http://www.guidodaniele.com is the site of an artist who paints mostly on other people's hands. It's awesome stuff.

http://azuregrackle.com/periodictable/table/ is a project that recruited different artists to design prints for each element of the periodic table. Extra points for blending art and science.

http://www.brickartist.com has some very impressive Lego sculptures, including Conan O'Brian.

http://www.abelardomorell.net is the site of a really neat photographer. One of the first things you find is camera obscura work.

At http://irinawerning.com/back-to-the-fut/back-to-the-future/, you can find grown folks reenacting pictures from their childhoods. Cross-reference: Funny.

Five at a time is enough, so that's all for today's Lundi Links. Check back next week for more, and possibly some regular posts in the meantime.

A Pilgrim's Progress

2011-05-02T14:39:00.000-07:00

I got my first seminary-related book today. I'll be reading What They Don't Tell You: A Survivor's Guide to Biblical Studies over the summer and hashing it out with an online discussion group of other incoming students. I can't go to the face-to-face weekend, but I figure it'll be good to get acquainted with people in cyberspace.

I also sent out an email to some of my Wilmington friends asking for company as I make the rounds of the city's best restaurants, collaboration on a yard sale, and help moving. It took me a long time to get around to it and a long time to compose it, mostly because I didn't want to ask for help moving and because it made the move more real. It seems to get more tangible and ambiguous every day.

I'm extremely excited about going to Richmond. The support and encouragement I've gotten have gone far beyond what people expressed when I went to grad school, which was plenty, so I'm certain that this is the right move, a rare feeling. But going there means leaving Wilmington! Dang it! Who invented that mess? I've never been so sad to leave a place and its people. So my heart is on the heavy side even as it soars.

Lundi Links: Funny

2011-04-25T13:28:00.000-07:00

Here are a few things on the 'net that consistently make me laugh.

http://catalogliving.net has a perfect eye for the absurd. The creator is the lady from this and several other funny commercials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjHoxSKqE0M&feature=related.

http://slushpilehell.tumblr.com is a real agent's mental responses to real queries.

http://tinyartdirector.blogspot.com is a chronicle of a young girl's responses to her professional-artist dad's drawings. It is rarely updated, but maybe it is new to you.

http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com shows pictures of signs all over the place that misuse quotation marks, and a brief response about what they really mean.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com is just a really good, funny blog.

On http://www.overheardinnewyork.com, people send in things they really overheard. From there, using the colored rectangles, you can find Overheard at the Beach, Overheard at the Office, Overheard Everywhere, and Celebrity Wit.

Enjoy! Next Monday will bring links in a new category.

The True Meaning of Easter

2011-04-23T18:33:00.000-07:00

...is sweets plus arts and crafts. Or so it would seem if one observed my behavior today, the day before the day.

Here is one of the latest additions to our family here at the Jenkins house.

Not all of his brothers and sisters were ready to greet the world.

Another new resident of my parents' house.

The arts-and-crafts portion features eggs made from a tie-dye egg kit. Among some sweet rocks.

And perhaps my favorite part of the day, thanks to Real Simple magazine. Check it: gumdrops, smashed thin with a spatch, cut in half and rolled into roses or cut into leaves. Tip: use lots of sugar as you'd use flour in kneading bread, because when you roll them out, you expose a much stickier side of the 'drop.

In short, I feel very accomplished today! How fun.

I'm glad I decided to blog for Lent, and exceedingly glad it's about over. While many of the posts have not been as theological and Lent-y as I'd envisioned, it's been a helpful and thought-provoking exercise. Thank you so much, everyone, for reading and supporting this and so many other projects. I'll be posting regularly, just not holding myself to doing it every day. Expect lots of links, which I've been looking forward to sharing after Lent.

Have a great Easter tomorrow, everyone. What a joyful occasion! Celebrate renewal, redemption, love, and faith.

Outliers

2011-04-22T18:13:00.001-07:00

I'm listening to Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers in the car. It's about how extremely successful people get that way. The gist is that nurture is just as important as nature, if not more so. He says it's all about opportunity. Part of that means being born at the right time and place, much of it has to do with cultural legacies and social systems, and some of it is under our (or our parents') control. That's a pretty small amount, but because it's all we can do anything about, it's worth a lot of attention.

As a non-parent, I'm thinking of how I can put this knowledge into action, short of lobbying for different education practices or something. While I can't directly create opportunities for children to get practice and mentorship in particular fields, I can create opportunities for people to feel welcome, safe, and loved, and to have fun, and to share what they have to share. Still not sure what form this takes in concrete, visible terms, but it will be with me for quite a while.

There's a lot more to Outliers than that. Quite a good read, if a little redundant. I recommend it for anyone, especially parents and educators.

The Thing That Makes Me Have to Take Deep Breaths

2011-04-21T17:36:00.000-07:00

This morning, I left around 8:30 for my 10:00 appointment for work. Then, I swung by the office of the guy I'd interviewed yesterday because I forgot to take his picture. By 12:30, I was back home and ready for a long afternoon and evening of good work.

I checked my email and saw, in a subject line, that the governor was going to be in Jacksonville. I prayed that it would be today so I'd already missed it. It was today, but at 5 p.m., which meant I could make it in plenty of time. Not a good thing because I had lots of work to fit into the rest of the day.

I cursed the sky and made the hour-long drive, which I'm used to, but not having to go there and back twice in one day. That's what really got me.

The reason for this post's title is the anxiety these situations cause me. This unpredictability is my least favorite part of my job. Most of my days have a pretty long and detailed to-do list, and when my plans are thwarted, I get very grumpy.

Since I only have a few more weeks at work here, this should be only an annoyance. But it's not the current trouble that gets me worked up, it's the future implications. Ministry, as I imagine it, is nothing but days like this. If I work in a church, or in a nonprofit agency, I will very frequently sit down in my office with a full docket of important and rewarding work for the day, only to check my email or voicemail or receive a call that...fill in the blank. Someone has died. Someone's in the hospital. A child is missing. Dramatic things like this may not happen super-often, but surely my flock will mix things up with smaller issues, like needing a confidante, not showing up for a volunteer job so I have to handle it, inviting me to something at the last minute, or some other harebrained scheme.

It's hard for me to think of this, mostly because of how badly I handle it at present. After a minute or two of overexcitement, I remember that church life will be considerably less disruptive for me. For one thing, a big one, these last-minute calls won't involve an hour-plus drive each time. I'll live in the same town as my employer. Going to something at 5 won't mean I'm sitting down to work at 9. Also, I will be helping people I care about, not inwardly rolling my eyes about an event that has no importance to me. And I knew when I took this job that it wasn't a perfect fit. If I go into my next job or career with more peace about it, that will create a much better and more harmonious, fulfilling situation.

So I lean heavily on these ideas on days like this. I'm not looking at a future of this level of frustration. There will be plenty of frustration, I know, but not much of this breed. A comforting thought.

Being a Good Grown-up

2011-04-20T18:53:00.000-07:00

I set my alarm for 7:30 this morning even though I had nowhere to be until 1:30. That's right, I have become an actual adult. I did it so I could run and shower without having breakfast at lunchtime. And you know what? It worked out great. I sat down to work at about 9:45 and had finished an article a little after ten. I wrote two more short pieces this morning before sitting down to lunch at a reasonable, grown-up lunchtime. Then I did the webcast, had a good talk with Dad, and did an interview all before the regular workday was over.

This is slightly unlike me. Because I often work in the evenings and am not much of a schedule person, I have weeks where things are pretty willy-nilly, and Friday can be an ugly affair around here because that's the deadline for the articles I should have been writing all week. But days like this give me faith in structure, or at least in getting up early. I'm thinking a lot about how I use my time because things will change drastically come July 6 when summer school starts. I'm trying to start good habits while simultaneously getting my ya-yas out, enjoying the relative lack of structure while I can. Right now, it's mostly just a topic of thought, but based on the success of today, I'm thinking I'll soon start changing my behavior. I've gone through periods where I got up early and adhered to a schedule, and one of those periods is coming up.

I say this after an evening of watching cartoons and reading graphic novels that were apparently attended for adolescents. Adulthood is highly relative.

Missing Out

2011-04-19T12:07:00.000-07:00

So I signed on with Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond today, unofficially, by confirming that I am interested in a program called Communities of Learning. I will read a book with other incoming students and take part in online discussions over the summer, shepherded by a faculty member or alum. Cool. There's also a weekend get-together before school starts so we can all meet face to face outside the realm of regular school-time.

But the get-together is the same weekend that my friend Laura is getting married. In Houston. Since I haven't quite mastered being in two places at once, I have to miss the get-together. The same thing happened with my cousin's wedding and our Davidson five-year reunion. This vexes me. The good news is that neither of these is a dilemma, exactly; I'm not thinking in circles about which I should do, because the priority in both cases is pretty clear cut. The other good news is that a surplus of activities is better than boredom. But that doesn't make it fun to miss something fun.

I have a lot of trouble with the concept that fun can happen without me. I'm looking forward to both of these weddings in a big way, though, and I'm certain that when I'm there, the last thing on my mind will be the reunion or the get-together. I'll be there to celebrate, and celebrate I will. I am very blessed to know all of the marrieds-to-be and to share in their happiness on the big day.

Rollin' It Out

2011-04-18T18:17:00.000-07:00

My roommate has a foam roller for her muscles, which I occasionally use with permission. It's hard to get used to but does tenderize stiff and sore muscles. It's just a plain cylinder, and you roll around on top of it.

The trick is to focus on the areas that it hurts to roll. It's counterintuitive to continue causing oneself pain, but pain is actually really beneficial and important physically. Stretching, yoga, and I'm sure plenty of other things, when done right, involve a certain amount of pain. When a stretch hurts, I've learned to stay there and take a few breaths. If I hurry away from it, the pain will just get worse and be there with a vengeance next time.

I think this has to do something with the hurtful aspects of faith and life that I've mentioned in other posts. Avoiding pain pretty much gets you nowhere.

Palm Sunday

2011-04-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

There was a lot of bloody, sad talk at church this morning, as well there should be in the lead-up to Easter. In Sunday School, we had to leaven it with jokes. In the service, not so much. It's hard to think about what happened on the cross, especially for people who strive to live in joy and those who want to make Christianity appealing to all. When I think of all the other ways it could have gone, I can feel a scowl forming on my face. If God can do anything, why did he have to make redemption so painful?

I'm not making any attempt to answer that question, but I at least understand that he did choose that, and because he did, we can't ignore the pain and violence of "Good" Friday. Facing it comes in different forms for everyone, and another thing I'm not doing here is prescribing a method of contemplating the cross. You'll find yours when it's time.

There's a Taize song that goes "Crucem tuam adoramus, Domine. Resurrectionem tuam laudamus, Domine." It means something like, "We adore your cross, Lord. We praise your resurrection, Lord." The song is in a minor key and has some hauntingly beautiful harmonies. It's one of my favorites from Taize, actually. Considering the lyrics reminds me that we don't just adore Christ's teachings or pacifism or care for the lowly. We don't just adore him for creating the Church and giving us Holy Communion or for any other reason. We adore His cross and His resurrection, first and foremost, and we can't praise one without the other. Focus only on the cross, and you're a Friday person who sees a lackluster and doomed world. Focus only on the resurrection, and you might become blind to all the perils and evils of the world. But if you can hold the two complementary truths in your mind and heart, you have a balanced and (to the extent that I am qualified to declare this) accurate idea of what the Christian faith is about. Without Christ's death, the resurrection is not a resurrection at all. Without the resurrection, Christ would be just another dead guy. As unpleasant as it usually is, we have to honor the brutality of the cross at the same time as we rejoice in its life-giving power.

Home Again, Home Again

2011-04-16T20:16:00.000-07:00

I got back this evening from a great time in Austin. Everyone there was extremely fun and nice. If I had to name a favorite part, it would be the Shabbat service we went to because one of the APTS students came in as a Unitarian but has now become part of a Jewish congregation. The rabbi was like a more down-to-earth version of Ben Stiller's character in Keeping the Faith. He was also an extremely good cantor. Hauntingly so.

Austin is basically equal to Richmond in the level of fun and the way I feel when there. Since Richmond has more logistical elements going for it, it's still ahead. I'm not turning in the papers for a few days because it took a while for things to sink in and clarify after the last trip, but I feel pretty confident about the decision.

This whole journey of exploring seminaries has been amazing for many, many reasons. One that just hit me today is that when I go to these schools and meet students, I'm meeting the future leaders of the church, my future colleagues, the people I will run into at conferences and collaborate with and pray for as we continue to learn and teach and lead. What a great privilege, even so early in the process.

The Little Things

2011-04-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I really don't like my job. You may have picked up on this from the blog, and you almost certainly have if you spend time with me in person (or on the phone like my patient and understanding mother). For instance, today, I left home at 7:45 a.m. to make it to a primary school music program at 9. This was not something I was asked directly to do by my supervisor, but the news is so slow that I need to do such things in order to have items in the paper each week (I accidentally typed, "I need to do suck things...." Like many typos, pretty apt). I realize it could be monumentally worse. I have a job, it pays a living wage, and it's not physical labor, to start with. Also, it is in the field I'm trained for. There are many advantages. Trying to make a news story out of five songs sung by first-graders is not one of them. So I get pretty crabby about it on occasion. But then something like this happens. I get to look at the old papers every few weeks to write the "This Week in History" column, which is one of the perks. Not so much writing it as spending time with bound copies of papers from 1981, 1991, and 2001, seeing pictures of the police chiefs and mayors when they were younger, studying the ads. Last time I did this, I got an extra special treat. Here it is. Now doesn't everything feel just a little bit better? It's amazing what a tiny thing can do for one's mood. Lent mode engage! Think of how you can be that tiny thing for someone. A smile, a compliment, picking up a dropped item, can work wonders, especially from a stranger. What a beautiful opportunity. Or you could cut your hair like this guy and seriously be a public servant.

I'm headed to Austin in a few hours until Saturday. After that, I will probably be able to make a quick decision about where I'm going. Hint: probably Union in Richmond, unless something unexpected happens in Austin. I've realized that as independent and world-traveling as I am and want to be, I don't want to have to take a plane or drive for days to see my family or many of my friends. Or eat at Flaming Amy's. Many other factors are also making Richmond edge ahead. Anyway, expect some sort of official announcement soonish. I may even break out the big fonts if I can figure out how.

Column Redux

2011-04-12T18:42:00.000-07:00

I wrote this week's column today. When I first started at the paper, I wanted my column to be a movie review column, but I couldn't get any local theaters to give me free or discounted tickets as a member of the press. So I occasionally wrote about whatever I was reading, but after a couple months it became just a place that I muse, much like this blog but a bit less personal and on a weekly basis.

Today, I wrote about exercising and how it's possibly the only time I'm truly living in the moment in a way that I can choose and control. I think I live in the moment at various times, but I don't know it's going to happen because it's based on a conversation or the indefinable quality of a really great party or just the feeling of opening the door on a surprisingly warm or chilly morning. But when I exercise, I am focused on the present in a predictable way. That's part of the appeal. Because my mind is unoccupied when I run or bike or swim, it is not infrequent that I spend part of that time fretting or planning the future or reliving the past, but most of that hour or so is spent attentive and attuned.

I say hello to babies in strollers and dogs and their owners. I sometimes sing very quietly to myself to make sure I'm really out of breath. When I need to get something out of my mind, I focus on each of my five senses one at a time: what do I see? What do I hear? and so on. When I'm in my room, in the car, at work, or with friends, I usually have a lot to pay attention to and a lot to think about. That's no less the case when I'm on the Loop or the bike, but the repetitive motion and the lack of mental stimuli bring my mind to a very different place. For once, when I see people, I'm not thinking of how they perceive me or where they've been or where they're going. I'm just taking everything in at face value and moving on to whatever captures my attention next.

Not everything I take in is pleasant. There's a Band-Aid stuck to the sidewalk that's been there for months, lots of dog poop, car alarms, and the garbage truck. But I'm thankful for all of it because I'm thankful to be outside, to be healthy enough to run or bike, and thankful for the experience of every moment, especially the ones I really and truly notice.

Choices, Plus McCullers

2011-04-11T21:02:00.000-07:00

I'm going to Austin on Thursday night to visit the seminary there and coming back Saturday. I am very happy about this. Very.

Until I check a Seagrove blog and am reminded that this weekend is the Celebration of Spring in Seagrove, when many of the potteries have kiln openings on the same day, which I might be at if I were in North Carolina instead of Texas. I would have been like, "Eh, you can't win 'em all," until the blogger said his wife would be making chocolate bread and leek and potato soup for his kiln opening. I have had this chocolate bread. Now my happiness about Austin is tinged with a distinct undertone of "Dang it!"

It's hard to accept that I can't do every fun thing ever. Quelle travestie! At least this one is kind of a no-brainer. Following God's call to seminary and the related trips, paperwork, and activities take precedence, chocolate bread or no chocolate bread.

I just finished listening to The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. Let me tell you something. This book is a masterpiece. I do not use that term lightly. Well, I do that sometimes, once in reference to 8 Mile, but this time I am serious. I haven't been so touched by a novel in a long time. It's about a deaf and mute man named John Singer in a small Southern town and the people who are drawn to him--a girl who's just entering adolescence, a restaurant owner whose wife dies in the course of the book, a new guy in town with political dreams, and the only black doctor around. They all talk to him as they talk to no one else. He understands because he reads lips but only rarely answers. The other people in town like and respect him, but these four hold him particularly close. Only once do they all meet in his room, and then only by accident.

I like the book for many reasons--the writing style, the very real characters, the way it is full of dramatic events but lacks drama--but one of the main reasons is Singer's status as a God figure. I don't know to what extent McCullers intended this, but the way the people talk to Singer is so much like prayer. It's private, unlike talking with others, intensely personal, and not usually done in hopes of a response. The black people talk of him as one of the few white people who can be trusted, and white folks also see him as respectable and trustworthy. He buys a radio so his guests can listen to it--something that's completely useless to him as a deaf man but that he knows will make them happy. Maybe someday I will read the book and keep track of the parallels, because these are only a few, and I missed a lot of the book on CD while paying attention to the road or just singing to myself or thinking of something else. I love it when literature has something to do with faith, the more subtle the better. I'm thinking it's not a book for everyone, but if you like to read literary novels, and especially if you like Southern Gothic style (like Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, and Harper Lee), then you should definitely give The Heart is a Lonely Hunter a try.

Pottery Sermon

2011-04-10T12:48:00.000-07:00

Today was United Methodist Women Sunday, meaning the UMW was in charge of all aspects of the traditional services at church. Instead of having one of our pastors or a UMW members do a sermon, they had a special guest who made a large vase before our eyes. As she potted, she talked about the parallels in our spiritual lives: the need for sharpness at some times and gentleness at others, the concept of centering and balance, and all the different types of vessels that are necessary and serve different but equally valuable purposes. It was a very, very cool thing, and it put me in a distinctly Seagrove mood.

Last night, we had a ladies' night fondue party, which was pretty much the best thing ever. And tonight we are having a regular ol' youth group for the first time in at least three weeks. This return to routine feels very good. I'm loving The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter on CD, Dad is home from the hospital and sounds great, and I booked my ticket to Austin to see the seminary there. After some roughness, things are looking up at last.

I spent over two hours yesterday at Panera reading, writing a long-postponed letter, and flirting with all the cute babies and toddlers that are there on Saturdays. Later, at the fondue party, we talked about the necessity of time alone. One couple takes turns leaving for a weekend once a month. Another woman said she always loves being alone but often dreads it before it happens. Having had such a great time at Panera, not exactly alone but not performing for anyone or trying to make an impression, I knew precisely the feeling and the importance of taking time for oneself. Praise God for the opportunities we have to do so.

Sowin' 'n' Reapin'

2011-04-08T16:59:00.000-07:00

This week, I feel like I've sown all I have and reaped nothing but exhaustion, tension of every kind, harsh words from almost everyone, and five nosebleeds in four days. Three of those happened while I was either bending over or blowing my nose, so I'm not as worried as I would be if they were all spontaneous.

Anyway, it's been hard. The worst week, and a couple of the worst days, I've had in a long, long time. I'm lucky I haven't had to weather much worse, but reminding myself of that only makes it marginally easier.

God tells us that we will sometimes sow where others will reap, see all our hard work go to someone else. But he also says that sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes, we will live in houses we did not build. We will eat olives from trees we did not plant. While we don't always reap exactly what we sow, and certainly not in the timetable we planned for, it does work out in the end. Hard work does pay off. Sometimes we get a prize for nothing. While I've never taken much consolation from statements about the future, it does mean something. Not that I'm going to get up from this kicking my heels, but at least I might go to bed without crying.

Give and Take

2011-04-06T18:45:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, spending time and energy on something means you won't have as much for something else. This means we have to make choices. If I read or go for a run in the morning instead of getting right to work, I will pay for it in the afternoon by being rushed and probably a little angry. If I work first in the morning, I often end up working all day anyway and don't have time for some other good thing. This usually makes me feel defeated, like I can't win or get it right.

The trick, not that I've mastered it or even begun to practice, is to give loving attention to the task at hand no matter what it is. "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men," says Colossians 3:23. Many translations say to do it "heartily." I like this idea. It sort of says, not that work makes up for time with God or can take the place of it, but that you can turn anything into a God-glorifying activity. Almost anything. This is what I would like to work on, and lately really need to.

Lenten Devotion

2011-04-05T18:53:00.000-07:00

There's a problem with this scheme that I didn't foresee. I pledged to blog every day, which I have for the most part. But it turns out I don't have the urge to blog every day. While I have plenty to share, recountings and observations that are fine in ordinary time seem a little limp when the blog is supposed to be all spiritual and Lent-y. I've just put off writing this post in no less than four ways.

But this is not a loss. It's a lesson. Devotion, as I've said in different words before, means you do something not because you always want to. You do it because you promised to do it, because it shapes you, because it is an expression of something important. Everything I've heard about marriage says you can't expect to feel those sparks of love and lust all the time, but you can't get a divorce every time you feel annoyed with your spouse. Likewise, I come to this blog because it's a place for my reflections on Lent, not because I woke up this morning thinking, "Ooh, let's blog!" So here I am, in spite of my own wishes, wrapping up quickly so I can find those online jigsaw puzzles, but here and happy to be writing.

Quel Jour

2011-04-04T19:55:00.001-07:00

The language of the title is in honor of Peter Mayle's Encore Provence, which, read by an Englishman on a CD played in my car, helped keep this day from being a completely wretched loss.

Let's see.

-My boss has zero communication skills, at least via email. This can not be a problem for weeks or months at a time, but now we have started a new project--webcasts!--which requires much more communication than usual. The webcasts are fun, but I literally never know whether I am doing the right thing when I'm writing the scripts and doing the related work.
-I was going to renew and return some library items but ran too late in the morning.
-I drove an hour to my first assignment, an hour to do the webcast, and an hour back to the same place where the first one was! Then an hour home. Again, thank you, Peter Mayle, and the lovely English audiobook reader.
-I had a splitting headache today, which I never have, and was very tired after my delicious weekend and an early jog. I really needed caffeine and was looking forward to checking out a new-to-me coffee shop. Closed on Mondays.
-I went to McDonald's to get coffee instead, but Boss called while I was in the parking lot, so I had to go to the library instead and write the script for tomorrow's webcast.
-You know, the public library, where I loiter with my computer because I don't have an office, and where a baby was crying.
-I had been going to read my Bible while drinking the coffee, and I never got to. ("Had been going to"? Is this OK?)
-When I called the number I found online for the library (the other library, the one where I live, which is SO FAR AWAY from where I work), it had been disconnected or something. Double bad: I now have a fine, and I cannot stand misinformation of that sort on the internet or elsewhere.
-When I finally got to McD's and took my ibuprofen with a sip of iced coffee, the straw was so big that I may have lost a pill in the drink. I then drank it really fast so as to finish before the pill dissolved and made that awful taste. I may have taken the pill just fine, but the possibility was pretty upsetting.
-Mom texted me that Dad was going into the hospital for a skin infection. I got it just before the evening meeting I covered, so I couldn't call for details, and I was distracted for much of the meeting by the possibilities. (The text (and the fact that it was a text and not a call) made it clear that I didn't need to come home or anything, it was for my information. I don't want you to think I got that news and callously went ahead to the meeting.)

But I'm not saying this just to complain. Partly to complain, yes, but also to tell you this: (Lent mode engage!)

I had a lot of plans for today, and most of them did not happen. This is the case on many days, but today it was pretty piled on. Missing my Bible-reading time was especially bad because I needed it more than usual.

On the retreat this weekend, after that long night of Apples to Apples, I knelt by my bed for a few minutes and whispered my prayers. I found that this worked well because the kneeling and whispering kept me focused. If I'm forming the words with my lips, I'm much less likely to find myself on a whole new topic than when I just pray in my head. I'm not a great pray-er, partly because I'm like, "If God knows everything, why do I need to tell Him stuff?" partly because it doesn't feel like an accomplishment, and probably for several other reasons. So it's always nice to find something that works, and I decided to try the out-loud/whisper thing regularly.

In the car tonight, on the way home from the meeting, I called Mom and had to leave a message. Anxious and antsy, I turned off Mr. Mayle's book and started to pray out loud. I felt better almost immediately.

Yes, it would have been great to do my Bible reading, but what a blessing to know that we can reach God, and He can reach us, even when our plans for doing so are foiled. It's good to have those plans, in fact it's crucial to arrange time and mental space for Him, but we also have to be open to God in other ways and times and places. If we insist that music or reading or a certain type of prayer or some other specific thing is the only way we communicate with God, we shut off a whole wing of our life with Him. So, listen for Him all the time, and try speaking to Him in new ways.

Mom called as I was praying. She and Dad had been going to urgent care since Friday morning, and he's been taking different forms of antibiotics. When the doctor there said today that IV antibiotics were next, they both said, "Yes, yes, we want that." They are ready to kick this thing. So, apparently, it's a good thing that he's in the hospital? Better, she said, than being at home and wondering whether he's improving. They both sounded pretty upbeat. Also, her iPad arrived today (I didn't even know they'd ordered it), and we talked about my coming there at Easter and how I'm going to make Rice Krispie treats and put them in greased plastic eggs and make a hollow in the middle and put candy in the hollow and take them out of the plastic eggs and put the halves together and it's going to be the best Easter snack ever. (I was about to put "best Easter thing ever." But that would be the original event. Good save, Jenkins.) So, I'm feeling a lot better than I did two hours ago. I have a lot to be thankful for.

Holy Exhaustion

2011-04-03T16:26:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend at Camp Caswell with the youth from my church. We had a great time worshiping, learning about our spiritual gifts, and exploring the forts that were built for the Civil War but never used. We went last year but spent our free time in only one fort, not knowing or not caring that there were at least four or five. The girls took lots of great pictures of each other there, and it's very fun to think about what each area might have been used for and what might have happened there.

Some of us ended up pretty much bushwacking our way across the top of one of the forts. There was a trail, but it wasn't used often or maintained, so the walk involved quite a bit of moving aside branches, surprise thorns, fear of poison ivy, and variations in steepness. It was inspiring to see how the kids helped each other along, offering strong hands to higher ground, words of encouragement, head counts, and leadership such that I was there only as a token adult. What a great feeling, and what a great group we have.

That night as we sat around the table playing Apples to Apples (which is very different with youth because they seem to take things more literally than my adult friends have in that game. For example, more than one person dismissed a response, such as Michael Jackson for "boisterous" or Mark Twain for "timeless," because the person was dead. I've never heard that from an adult in that game!), more faces than not were a few shades pinker than they had been that morning. The sun and wind had joined forces to create the effect. Several people's arms had scratches from errant branches, and those who didn't bear physical marks of the journey were visibly tired.

All but one of my arm scratches have gone away, but my eyes have that puffy, sandy feeling that's so familiar, and the balls of my feet are happy to be at rest. I'm very blessed to be able to associate this feeling almost exclusively with good things: ski trips, plane rides, summer camp, and the myriad forms of excitement that almost hinge on exhaustion. What a great gift God gave us in the days and weekends and weeks that jolt us out of the ordinary, take us to a new place, and deprive us of rest in order to give us games, conversations, laughter, exploration, long walks on top of forts, and the sense that we are not missing a thing.

Focus

2011-03-31T20:58:00.000-07:00

This evening, I am writing this very late, and I am very tired. I haven't accomplished terribly much more today than I do on any other day, but I've been doing things all day. For instance, my grandfather sent me a link to an online jigsaw puzzle, and then I found out that I can do infinite numbers of puzzles. That's not really a for-instance, it's pretty much the only distraction I had today. I love and hate finding new computer games or other distractions. Love because I am amused or challenged or get to use my brain in new ways, and hate because, God, look at me. Think of how well I could have used that time instead. Think of how asleep I could be right now, how much shorter my list could be tomorrow, how much less frazzled I could be as I pack for the weekend tomorrow afternoon.

Things always turn out well for me. Somehow, the things I'm obliged to do get done, no matter how much time I spend on things no one holds me accountable for. This is very much a blessing, but I think it keeps me from reforming and saying a resounding "NO!" to these time-eaters. The best thing I can do, for now, is remind myself of the power of focus and the importance of my top priorities. I thought of this article from Utne, which is actually an excerpt from a book. It's stuck with me for months because it talks about the far-reaching effects of focus or lack thereof. I need this today, and maybe you do, too.

Spoiler Alert

2011-03-30T19:06:00.000-07:00

I watched last week's The Office online last night, and wow, what a great thing. Just when it gets too awkward or I start not caring about it, they come up with something fabuloso. Warning: if you haven't seen it yet and don't want to know what happens, stop reading now! Tune in for tomorrow's post, but skip this one!

So Michael asks Holly to marry him. At first, he wants to spell out the question in gasoline in the parking lot and light it on fire, but Pam catches him and calls a meeting to come up with a safe, reasonable proposal. In the end, Michael takes Holly on a tour of the office, telling her what happened in each spot: "I first saw you through these blinds," "This is where we first kissed," that kind of thing. Then he tells her the next part is going to be the biggest challenge to their relationship and goes through one set of doors, I think to the annex, and there's everyone from the office standing in two rows with a path between them, each holding a candle. "Will you marry me?" asks Phyllis. "No," says Holly. "Will you marry me?" asks Stanley. "No," says Holly, and so on as Holly and Michael walk down the line.

They go through another set of doors into Holly's office, which is full of candles. Michael goes down on one knee, and Holly kneels as well. He pulls out the ring, which is gigantic because he thought three years' salary was standard. He asks her to marry him in Yoda-talk, and she responds in kind. The sprinklers go off because of the candles, and they kiss in the "rain."

Here's a vid:

I'm sorry it's kinda cut off on the side. Here's the link in case you'd rather see it the regular way.

I'm not just sharing this because I'm obsessed with The Office. There's a lesson. God is always leading us through a gauntlet of competing loyalties. There are always people, or ideas, or groups, or other forces on either side of us asking us to commit to them, to love them, to follow them with our hearts and act accordingly. But we can't say yes to all of them, and if we want to be with God, we can't say yes to any of them. Even if you're not following God, you can think the same way about whatever it is you do commit to--your writing, art, studies, family, friends, sport, business. There will be challenges to your single-mindedness. Your role is to limit your yeses and choose them wisely. I believe strongly in the power of "yes" and the need to say it more often, but when it comes to the big questions, we have to be cautious sometimes. Otherwise, we will be drawn and quartered, pulled in opposite directions until we're torn apart. Committing to only one thing can keep us whole and healthy, moving in one direction to the delight of all.

Short and Sweet

2011-03-29T17:59:00.000-07:00

Childlike is different from childish.
Carefree is different from careless.
That is all for today.

Feeding of the Five

2011-03-28T16:00:00.000-07:00

This month has been March Madness at youth group, in which we make a special effort to pump up attendance and bring canned goods to donate. Yesterday, we capped off the month by feeding the hungry at Hallyburton Park. The other adults had gotten the word out with flyers and invitations to various groups whose members might be in need of a good meal. We got hot dogs and fixings, sweet tea, and everything else one needs for a great cook-out.

Then we woke up on Sunday morning. It was cold. Overcast. Very much threatening rain, and the threat came true. We had said "rain or shine," and we had to stick to it. Luckily, the kids had music practice beforehand, so they were already a captive audience and rode the church bus to the park. But youth and counselors far outnumbered the guests; there were maybe eight of them? It was extremely cold. We had a shelter, but the air itself was damp. The food was delicious, and we had fun. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who was disappointed with the turnout. Not that I blame them.

As part of this food-focused month, I did a talk on the feeding of the 5,000/4,000 (there are two different instances with different numbers). Jesus took tiny amounts of food and made them into enough for the crowds. I talked about how this is the only miracle the average person can actively participate in. We can't heal, we can't turn water into wine, but we can feed the hungry. We can give at least a little of our plenty to those who have less.

The hard part is, the need is no less present and pressing for one person, or eight, than it is for five thousand. We didn't get a big shebang last night. It wasn't a glorious event in which hundreds, or even dozens, came and were fed. It was just another night at the park, just another cookout, just another meal. But even though not very many people came, they were still helped. They got a meal they might not otherwise have gotten, and some of them took home leftovers too. So a good deed doesn't have to be, actually shouldn't be, a roaring success of an event. It can be routine, nonchalant, even in some ways a disappointment. In thinking big, we sometimes forget to think small: each life touched is a success. Period. It's not a numbers game, and it never will be. It's about paying attention to the needs around you and doing your best to meet them. We are very blessed to have so many opportunities to do so.

On Closing Doors

2011-03-27T20:40:00.001-07:00

This morning, I hit snooze for a long time and then decided to skip the 8:30 service, which bought me an extra hour. I was even late to Sunday School! Watch out. This afternoon, I made a new chart for my Alton Brown eating plan, which I hadn't done in such an official manner since, oh, September. I got a star for today, which means I ate everything I'm supposed to. But I also ate a whole lot of cookies this afternoon, which means I can't have any more dessert all week. (In my modified-for-sanity plan, a small piece of dark chocolate is acceptable on a daily basis in addition to "dessert" once a week, which can mean a series of small items or one large thing. It's surprising how far just a little chocolate can go in curbing cravings.)

I was going to exercise this afternoon, but it was cold and damp out, and I have an aversion to exercising between two public appearances because I hate getting made up and hair did twice in one day. Blech. So, first thing tomorrow, no matter how cold, even if it's raining a little bit, I'm going out. I walked a fair amount on my trip but didn't run and certainly didn't eat healthily, so I'm reestablishing my good habits, and today was the beginning.

It occurred to me just today that Austin might be the happy medium between Richmond and New York. It's supposed to be pretty liberal but still has a Presbyterian foundation. In reputation for fun and, I'm guessing, in size, it's in between the other two cities. It has a two-week summer course where you hike and camp and learn about nature and spirituality (at least I think that's what you learn about; I stopped listening once he said "hike and camp for two weeks"). I still haven't heard whether I'm in. I'm mailing two of my "no"s tomorrow, to Princeton and to Iliff. It feels weird to put an end to a possibility, to a relationship really. I'm so used to broadening searches, keeping options open, waiting to see, needing to hear from someone else as opposed to being the one to say the word, that it feels highly unnatural to take this very tangible and final step of closing these doors. And for no reason that I can articulate, nothing but the blossoming feeling I get in my gut while visiting or thinking about other schools.

While I was working on my thesis, Philip told me at one point that it was time to close some doors, narrow my focus for the book. It hurt, but he was right, it was necessary. This is the same feeling. The good part is that I got into so many places and have so many options, and that I absolutely can't go wrong. I'm not going to be unhappy at any of these places, which is probably the most comforting thought of all. What a great privilege to go through this process, and to share it with you.

Pictures and Thoughts

2011-03-26T14:05:00.000-07:00

A few images from the last legs of the trip:

New York knows how to do mosaics. Not a few subway stops had their names like this.

Here's a staircase at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

This was in the Boston subway, as you go down a set of stairs.

And this is something in Boston.

And now for our regularly scheduled programming:

Yesterday afternoon, my friend Peter called me while I was driving from one assignment/meeting to another. I stopped at a coffee shop, partly to avoid talking and driving at the same time and partly because it wasn't yet time for my next thing. I sat in the parking lot talking to him for a few minutes, then I went in, but I didn't get very far. The place was closed, apparently for painting. So I went back to my car and turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened. I wiggled the steering wheel. I tried it with my foot on the brake. I took the key out of the ignition, got out of the car, and got back in. Still nothing. So I called AAA and called the person I was supposed to meet. Took out my Harris Teeter bags and laid them on the ground so I could sit there and read. It was a nice day to be out of doors.

The nice man came and jumped the car, and I got home without a problem. But when I got here, it wouldn't start again. So I asked my roommate what one does in this situation, called Mom and Dad, and made a last-minute semi-appointment at the Honda place for this morning. So much for the day of mellow productivity I had planned for today. It wasn't so bad, though; I took my reading material, drank their free coffee, and got a new car battery. Afterward, I went to the grocery store and stocked up for just a little over half the full price, all told. Love it! It's super double coupon week.

I made some granola this afternoon for the first time in a long time. Got some reading done, and now after a little primping I'll be ready to go to an oyster roast, more for the company than for the bivalves.

I missed posting yesterday, due to nothing but neglicence. And car trouble. So let me say now that thesis readings are the best things in the world, and our creative writing program attracts brilliant, funny, big-hearted people and turns them out even better. What a privilege. I heard on Thursday night about a sketchy hitchhiking incident, a snow-and-ice rescue, a mob burning the home of a black woman for dating a white man, a southern boy's meeting with the Russian grad student who's running the psychology experiment he's part of, and two girls who are maybe in love in the midwestern winter when one of them gets involved with a paraplegic man. Where else can you get all that in one night, and so well done? Thank you, readers, writers, for sharing your talent and joy.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-Jig

2011-03-24T11:02:00.000-07:00

I rolled in at about 11 last night, neck and shoulders stiff from driving and, I'm pretty sure, lymph node overdrive. When you combine seven days of fast action, a mostly-carbs-and-sugars diet, lots of driving, and the effort to be all reflective and discerment-y, it's quite an assault on the immune system. Luckily, the before-bed Emergen-C, as usual, worked wonders. This morning, I felt as good as one could expect to feel.

Boston University School of Theology seems like it's not the place for me. There's nothing wrong with it, but I didn't get that flash of glee or giddiness upon arriving or at any other time. It feels pretty good to cross a place off my list.

Union Theological Seminary in New York is a wonderful place. My trip there involved the car, a bus, the AirTrain, a train, and the subway, as well as leaving my phone in the car and buying the wrong kind of ticket for the train. Once I arrived, things were much better. I had breakfast at a place across the street from the school, and man, do I ever love sipping coffee while looking out through a window in a big city.

Union is the oldest non-denominational school of theology in the country. Many films and TV shows have used the grounds to get the quitessential old-school academia feel, like A Beautiful Mind and Mona Lisa Smile. (I first typed "A Beulaville Mind." That's the town I work in. It would be a really different movie.) All the housing, classrooms, and offices are basically one big building, with a tunnel connecting some of them so you don't have to go outside if it's bad. Some of the professors live there too. They have a professor of Theological Librarianship. The class I visited was really entertaining and educational. Chapel was led by a student who had made her own oil paints from natural materials and had some paintings on display. There was a labyrinth made of soil. The school has one main entrance with 24-hour security. There's no class on Fridays. It's sort of part of Columbia University, so the 300-odd Union students have access to a lot of other classes, the library, the fitness center, and the resources of a much larger, very good school. Someone estimated that about half of Union's students are gay, and they come from all denominations. It was a very good experience. It seemed to have all the advantages of Princeton, like pretty buildings and preparation for all different kinds of careers. But it's easy to arrange an apartment, unlike at Princeton, and living in New York provides so many opportunities for ministry and puts you next to so many people in need. Princeton seems to have less of that.

So, I went to Princeton and thought that was it. Then I went to Union in New York and thought that was it. Then I went to Union in Richmond.

I arrived really late, around 11 p.m., after a full day in New York. Because I'd just come from there, I thought Richmond was the most boring and lame-o place ever. The buildings were not impressive. I was very ready to write it off.

The next morning, I left my key in the admissions office before going to class, and the seats had all these pillows made from T-shirts. They had one of those cool one-off coffeemakers that also makes tea and whatnot, with those little cups, you know? The first class I went to, something about Ethics, was really good. The professor started by asking for prayer requests and saying a prayer. She was very funny and mentioned that she'd written a recommendation for one of the guys in the class. "Did you know that every time I write a recommendation for someone, they think that person has to be black? Like they don't think I would write a recommendation for a white person!" She's black. Later, a friend told me that her nephew is Nick Cannon, who was in Drumline and is married to Mariah Carey. "I found out that my nephew got married by watching Entertainment Tonight! I thought we were a close family!" she had said at the time.

After class, I went to the admissions office for a couple of talks, one with the dean of students and one with the financial aid person. But first, they told me I got in! They hadn't finalized the financial aid package but said it would be better than Princeton's. (That's how they put it, too. "We'll do better than Princeton." Just kidding!) Summer school starts in July, and they recommended that I go this summer. It sounds like a great way to adjust to living there and ease into having a full load.

The place I stayed was a one-bedroom apartment. Its condition and workmanship weren't anything special, but it was very spacious, with a study and a storage room. I've been assuming I want an apartment as opposed to a dorm, for various reasons, one of which is that I don't want to live in an already-furnished place. My tour guide mentioned that she might ask the housing people to take some of her dorm furniture out so she could bring her own, and I'd never thought of that! So I asked to see a dorm after all. It was much nicer than the apartment! Hardwood floors! Private bathroom! The one I visited basically had two rooms, at least one of which was much bigger than mine. The only disadvantage from an apartment is sharing a kitchen, but it seemed like people are pretty respectful about shelf space and not eating each other's food. There are two ovens, so the likelihood of both being in use is small. They did say that particular dorm might be full, and the other one is apparently not so great. It was a pleasant surprise, though, that at least the one dorm is so nice.

At chapel, the preacher was a professor there and a Davidson grad. His sermon was very good. We had a community lunch afterward, and I went to a class on theories of religious education, which was also very thought-provoking. I had a lot of trouble keeping my mouth shut, actually, because there were so many good ideas flying around.

I met with another professor who's also a Davidson grad, then had dinner with friends and hit the road, spinning with delight and dismay. Oh, well. No one ever told me it would be an easy or clear-cut decision. I'm very blessed to have had that trip and seen so many people I already knew as well as meeting new folks. I learned a lot, and now I have a bit more time to consider the various factors. I very much look forward to seeing how this will all turn out.

Boston, Day 2

2011-03-20T17:12:00.000-07:00

This was my one full day off of the trip, with no driving or school visits. I hung out until almost 1, then rode into Boston to find the school of theology I'm going to tomorrow and visit Faneuil Hall, a place my roommate recommended with foods and shopping. I came back and spent most of the evening trying to fathom how I'm getting into New York City tomorrow night and back out the next evening. Now I'm going to bed. I had a theological reflection in my mind so the blogging would be a real Lenten practice instead of just self-indulgence, but it went away sometime between the New Jersey Transit Authority site and the four windows of MapQuest I had open at once. My stars. Over and out.

Boston, Day 1

2011-03-19T19:40:00.000-07:00

Most of today was spent driving, so I don't have terribly much to report, only that I was able to avoid NYC traffic, hallelujah, and had no tollbooth incidents. I finished I Am America (and So Can You!) and started The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which is very good. In regular reading, I finished Island of the Blue Dolphins on the subway into town. That's a good book. Rather darker than My Side of the Mountain but not enough to discourage me from this fun YA wilderness-survival trend. It's incredible to think of someone surviving alone in the wild for so long--this one's based on a true story. I doubt most of us would hold up very well or very long, and I'm not sure I'd even have much will to live if no one else was around. It makes you think about the nature and purpose of life at its most basic. Kinda scary.

I got here at about 4 at my hotel outside Boston and planned to chill for the evening but then found that a restaurant recommended by a friend would not be open tomorrow, so I thought I'd better go today. Mr. Bartley's Gourmet Burgers is a very good place to eat. Many of their burgers are named after famous people with clever taglines, like "The Ted Kennedy, a plump, liberal amount of burger" and "The Afghan--Attack this and you'll never leave." I sat at a long table with people I didn't know. It took me a while to find the place, but that was good because I got to explore more than I might have. Then I came home and here I am.

Princeton, Day 2

2011-03-18T18:52:00.001-07:00

For some reason, I can only put pictures at the beginning of a post. So here they are! First, a cool sculpture, the first thing you see when you go in the museum. If you know me extremely well, you'll be glad to hear I did continue into the museum and was able to avoid walking directly under the dudes. There was a room full of statues, though, set too close together, which I skipped, but not before saying out loud, "ooooh, no." (If this is confusing to you, the explanation is that I have never liked things hanging from the ceiling. As a child, I would have whimpered my way under these guys with my eyes shut tight and someone holding my hand, if I went in at all. As for the room full of statues, that's a new thing, probably because I never saw one before. Museums in general are pretty dicey places for me because of these and other sensory dislikes, but I guess the art value outweighs the fear factor.) The captions apply to the pictures below them, not above. I would change this, but I can't cut and paste on this blog.

These little guys were all over the place today.

Here is a saint in someone's yard presiding over some of the same flowers.

I like the way this wall fits around this tree.

Just another day at Hogwart's. This is the university campus, not the seminary's.

Finally, how about that academic building? Most of the seminary's classes are in here. The interior doorways have pointy arches too.

This morning, I woke up before my alarm, maybe from excitement, and crossed the street to the admissions office to get a list of classes I could choose from to visit. I accidentally looked at the Thursday list instead of the Friday list, so instead of going to the beginning of a class on women and preaching, I went to the middle of a class on the three African novels of Chinua Achebe. It took me longer than I'd like to admit, to realize I'd goofed. In my defense, they had just finished lecture and were breaking up into groups, so it wasn't obvious that I had come in the middle. It turned out very well, though, because the discussion was lively and intelligent; everyone was clearly enjoying themselves and learning. And I knew one of the people in my discussion group! I had an inkling that it might be her, so I asked at the end what her name was. Turns out we did Youth Council retreats together in high school. But that's not all; our families go way back to when we lived in Raleigh before I was in first grade. "Had my parents died," she said, "I would have come to live with you!" That was the case on our side too.

We had dinner tonight; she was very helpful and said some thought-provoking things about seminary. One of them (I'm paraphrasing): if you plan to go into church ministry, why would you spend time at a very liberal seminary learning more liberal things when your career will probably put you in a moderate setting? Most churches are moderate, and it could be frustrating to have one's liberal ideals built up during seminary and then basically not be free to act them out or preach them the way one would like to. Not that a pastor isn't free to enact her theology, but I don't think anyone accomplishes anything by coming in like gangbusters with ideas no one will listen to, no matter what those ideas are. She said Princeton is pretty moderate as a whole, and the students run the gamut on most issues. I agree that this is probably a better environment for me, or for anyone, than a school that's mostly one way or another.

The main thing that bothers me, and that I'm looking at in each place, is housing. I basically will not live in a dorm. I'm past that for many reasons: 1) What would I do with my furniture? 2) Living in the dorm requires a meal plan, and cooking is very important to me. 3) No one likes to share a bathroom. But because I'm single, it's unclear what my chances are for getting an apartment through the seminary. At least one other school gives preference to married students for apartments. I see the logic in this, but that doesn't make it easier to accept. What I'm saying is, harumph. As for the cost, I just stick my fingers in my ears and say "La la la" when I start thinking about it. Unfortunately, that doesn't drown out one's own thoughts. So I blog.

Great things about Princeton: The students said it prepares people for various careers, which is great because I don't know where I'm headed afterward. Some seminaries are narrower. The town is beautiful and feels safe, and I would walk and bike a lot. (Except, the weather has not been representative. It was at least 70 degrees and sunny today! I truly don't know how I'd handle a real winter. So what I mean is I'd walk and bike a lot in April through September. The rest of the time, I'd dream about April through September.) There is a pool. Every class with more than 26 students is broken into small groups led by Ph.D. students or the professor. This is awesome and the way things should be. I could come for summer language school in July. They have chapel five days a week (all the seminaries have it, but they range from one day a week to five). Everyone left their bags and coats outside the chapel, which shows that they trust each other. (Davidson alert!) My initial reaction to arriving on campus was a deeply felt gut positive.

It's possible that I'll gush about everywhere I go. (Oh, I got word from Iliff in Denver. In.) We'll have to see. But at the moment, this place is pretty sweet. Austin is the other front-runner, but I don't even know if I'm accepted there. Uncharacteristically, I do not feel anxious about this decision. I almost wrote "do not feel anxious yet," but there's no reason to think that way. God is in control. It was his idea in the first place, so he'll make the rest clear.

Princeton, Day 1

2011-03-17T19:38:00.000-07:00

This is the size serving they gave me at an ice cream place here in Princeton, with my hand for comparison and the sweet little spoon that's meant for samples but they use it for serving. You could get two flavors even in the small size, and they had a lot of Irish offerings, so I got chocolate Bailey's and an Irish beer flavor. Both were unique, complex, not too sweet, and just right. Best of all (sort of), as seen above, the small size was actually small! I love a restaurant that gives me a realistic, healthy portion that's satisfying but doesn't cause pain. Hence my photographic celebration.

This day was very tiring, fun, exciting, and at one moment a bit scary when I accidentally went in the E-Z Pass lane at a toll station and stopped to talk to the attendant and explain myself, not realizing there is no attendant at the E-Z Pass lane! And you're not supposed to stop or slow down! (I think the people have something on their car that is read by an apparatus.) So people honked at me, and I thought, well, they're not getting my money this time, I wonder what will happen. One of the times I went in the correct lane and had an attendant, she was mad that I gave her quarters. "Do I have a choice?" she asked, and not in a bright and friendly way. "No, sorry, I didn't know," I said. I had bills but didn't think one should ask for change at a toll booth. Clearly, toll rules are not part of my world at this time.

The GPS made me go straight into Washington, D.C., which I know is totally unnecessary. I more or less understand Mapquest and how to tell it to avoid certain things, but with GPS, I'm a blind follower of an eerily knowledgeable technology. In some ways, it's like God's guidance of us, how we're not supposed to ask for the whole plan, just follow the steps as they become clear. Except God knows to avoid D.C. traffic when possible. I was rather skeptical starting in NoVA, but when it told me to go on Pennsyvania Avenue, I knew I should just say goodbye to my pre-dinner arrival time. I was somewhere between "Oh, no, it didn't!" and "Maybe I'll pass the White House!" I did not pass the White House. The lesson is that I will study maps and Mapquest printouts before each leg of this trip and use the GPS only for portions. Thank you, Wilcox family, for the GPS! It is very fun to use and helpful.

I finished a pretty good mystery book on CD, although it was number ten in a series I've only read the first of, so the beginning was rough. The series is by Laurie R. King, and most of the books have something to do with bees in the title. The first is The Beekeeper's Apprentice. They are about Sherlock Holmes and his young lady apprentice! I'm pretty rabid about Sherlock. I recommend the books even if you don't normally go for mysteries. I then started on I Am America (and So Can You!), which is probably a lot better on audio (Colbert is reading) than regular. Come to think of it, he got a Grammy for it, right? Well deserved.

This book on CD thing, it is a revelation to me. I've finished two books in, like, 72 hours! In addition to the ones I'm reading reading! I wonder how long until I feel like I'm cheating on NPR.

When I got to Princeton, I felt a bit suspicious because I was driving through some pretty sparse areas, even when it said the school was less than a mile away. I wondered if Mercer Road and Mercer Street were different. But then the houses suddenly got bigger and closer together, and there it was! I drove around a green where people were throwing things to each other, and the buildings are all so precisely what a school's buildings should be--old stone, brick, fine craftsmanship. My head was spinning with books and academia and age, quite like a Davidson vibe. I checked into the guest rooms and then went to dinner at a bar in Palmer Square.

Let me tell you about Palmer Square. They have a store that is just for olive oil. They have a store that is just for stationery and paper. The public library is there. Nearby, there's a Talbots--regular and petites. There are a lot of restaurants that all look really good. But the most important thing about Palmer Square is...are you ready?...I stopped counting ice cream places. There are that many.

A wrong turn sent me walking down through/past the university's campus (Princeton University? Ever heard of it? I actually almost did forget that the seminary isn't the big thing in town), which looks a little like Hogwart's, like a dragon might poke his head around the corner. I can't wait to see the town in full daylight--it looked great when I arrived, but I didn't have time to explore or get pics before night fell, although those pictures probably would be good too.

So, I really like Princeton so far. I'm still curious as to how my tour, class visit, etc. will go. Oh, and I found out today that I got into three other seminaries. Those phone calls were an especially nice way to pass time on the road. Heh heh heh. This is one of those days (and chapters, really) you wish you could flash-freeze. Even though the future change is part of why it's so exciting.

The Next Step

2011-03-16T20:03:00.001-07:00

Ta-da! The blood donation went fine, of course. They gave me Nekots afterwards and lots of water. It's pretty rare that one is encouraged to sit still and eat a snack for ten minutes. I did get a little squeamish thinking about some of the questions, some of the diseases they asked if I had, etc. But as I said, it's all psychological. I'm trying to decide now if this is something I should do regularly. It's such an easy way to help, really. While donated, I focused on the TV, which was on a show I'd never seen, but I think it had the guy who's on Love Actually as the rock star's manager/buddy and also on The Full Monty. But he was playing an American! Sitcoms in general are so bad, and this one was no exception. Thank God for the exceptions, and for the welcome distraction of a bad sitcom when you'd rather not think about the vital fluids leaving your body.

Now that I've done something unpleasant to serve others, the next step is twofold: to make it so that's not a rarity, and to do it without making a hoopla, blogged or otherwise. There's nothing humble about announcing to all of the internet what a servant you are! I've got a long way to go.

Tomorrow, I'm leaving for points north: Princeton, then Boston, then New York, then Richmond, to see schools in each spot. Friends have graciously loaned a GPS and suggestions for good food and fun. I'm about to print out my itineraries and directions, pack quickly, and get a good night's sleep so I can hit the road early. There's nothing like driving for hours and realizing it's only ten a.m.! I will attempt to continue the daily blogging on the road; if that doesn't pan out, I'll have a full report upon return.

On Giving Blood

2011-03-15T18:49:00.000-07:00

I gave blood once or twice in college, maybe high school. It was a highly unpleasant experience, more psychologically than physically, and I decided I could be of service in more comfortable ways.

Fast-forward to early this summer, when my church held a blood drive and I felt the semi-familiar pang of "I should do that." I realized that I hardly ever did anything painful for anyone else. Youth group is loads of fun, and so are the other church-related things I do. I knew service is not about free pizza and fun and games, and giving blood would be one way to break that barrier. But I couldn't get away from work to give. Whew! Close one.

Then, I saw last Sunday that church was having a drive again today, Tuesday. So I called to make my appointment well ahead of time and tried not to think about it, becoming hypersensitive to the inside of my elbows.

Yesterday, I found out about a meeting I needed to cover for work which kept me from being in town for the appointed time, so I canceled. Normally, I might take this as a "sign" (AKA "excuse") that I wasn't supposed to give blood, but my mom said maybe I could give at a Red Cross center. So I called this morning and set up an appointment for tomorrow. I'll be at the center at noon, squeezing my eyes shut and dramatically turning my head away from my left arm. I'm aware that the world will not end, but I know it's going to hurt. As much as I'd like to avoid it, some things should.

Born Standing Up

2011-03-14T18:18:00.000-07:00

I had the most delightful trip to the library today to pick up books on CD for my upcoming seminary scouting trip (yessss! I'm so excited!). I left behind a bunch that looked good, so I may start listening to them in daily life in the car if I can somehow square it with my unnatural love of NPR. I'm really excited to listen to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a selection of Christmas items from the Reduced Shakespeare Company, a couple of mysteries to keep it exciting, and one or two more.

I was so happy to have them that I popped one in right on the way home from the libes: Born Standing Up, Steve Martin's memoir. I'm on disc two now, which means it/I/we got over the hurdle of the all-important first disc switch. Martin is a pretty good and sometimes great writer on the sentence level, such that I may one day want to read it and copy down a phrase or two. I like the book so far for many reasons, partly because I've always been interested in humor as something to study. It seems so spontaneous, so undefinable, but I've heard many people say it's a science to be learned and practiced. Martin talks about falling asleep listening to records of comedians, playing them over and over to listen for their timing, vocal nuances, everything. He learned the banjo the same way, even slowing down the records to hear each note.

The idea of humor-as-science fascinates me because it's sort of heartening that something so seemingly effortless can be mastered with practice and time. When we see people who are great at something, there's no reason to be jealous in most cases because they probably spent their whole life perfecting it, to the exclusion of certain other joys. We're not all that different from each other. No one was born standing up, funny or otherwise. Yes, we have inclinations and talents, but those are nothing without effort. You might see someone's ability and wish it were yours, but just think--to be that good of a (musician, artist, mathematician, fill-in-the-blank), you would have had to sacrifice a lot of what you've done instead and, consequently, who you are now. You'd be a great fill-in-the-blank, sure, but there's no telling who you'd be as a result.

Let's all be thankful for who we are, what we're good at, what we're terrible at, and all the wonders of the world around us.

Devotion and Temptation

2011-03-13T14:08:00.000-07:00

We learned in church today about temptation and how it is universal. Everyone, absolutely everyone, deals with temptation in some form.

This afternoon, I was reading about spiritual practices and considering the importance of regularity and repetition, carving out part of one's day and life to do whatever works: prayer, meditation, yoga, reading, the things that get us in tune and calmed down.

I've been intermittently following a plan on which Alton Brown lost fifty pounds. There are six things you have to eat every day, five at least three times a week, four to limit to once a week, and four to cut out entirely. The plan has worked well for me, especially when I follow it closely (imagine!).

So: Temptation is everywhere. Discipline, which I think of in this context as self-denial, is a good way to combat it in the short term, in essence saying, "I'm just not gonna." But devotion, which in this context to me means replacing the bad thing with one or more good things and focusing on that instead, is going to get you a lot further and be a lot more fun. The Alton Brown concept is that if you fill your menu, stomach, and mind with fruit, whole grains, nuts, leafy greens, carrots, and green tea, you won't have as much time and space to get distracted by the darling cupcakes, the crispy fries, the caramel, and all of their backstabbing friends. I believe this carries over to faith. If you focus on doing the right thing instead of assiduously avoiding the wrong thing, you will probably wake up one morning and realize you haven't been craving the vice quite so badly. And in the meantime, you have done something great for yourself, God, and the world.

This is the principle behind devotions, which I take to mean anything you do intentionally on a daily basis. You do it because you're devoted, not because you jump out of bed dying to do it each and every single day. I don't have any strong feelings either way about carrots. Sometimes, I get completely sick of them and even of the peanut butter I eat them with. But, for days or weeks at a time, I will eat a carrot a day, because I know it makes me that much less likely to binge on junk. Likewise, if you read a text that feeds your faith, or pray, or stretch, or do something else that's healthy and draws you toward God, those practices will occupy you for so many minutes, and during those minutes at the very least, you can't yield to the myriad temptations that face you.

John Revisited

2011-03-12T18:29:00.001-08:00

It took me until a couple months ago to realize what John the Baptist means when he quotes Isaiah talking about preparing the way of the Lord. Every mountain and hill shall be made low, he says, and every valley be raised up. Every crooked path shall be made straight. For years, I liked the image but didn't get why this needed to happen. "That's not very nice to the mountains and valleys," I thought, having been raised in an age and a home where we respect differences and diversity. What a boring world it would be if everything were flat and every line straight! When did homogeneity become the goal?

But this Advent, when we read that kind of thing a lot, it struck me that it's not about sameness. It's about ease of travel. We lower the mountains and raise the valleys in order to open up paths for God's presence and work. We straighten the paths to make his way clear and simple. We have to create a world, or at least a life, where God's movement is unhindered. I know my heart is full of jagged mountains, and sometimes it seems like they will never smooth out. We all have things that make it harder than necessary for God to move in us. Lent is a good time to identify those and seek clarity on how to move them out of the way and eventually eliminate them altogether.

J the B

2011-03-11T18:15:00.000-08:00

My second-favorite Bible character of all time is John the Baptist. (Third: David. First: Take a guess!) I picture him with wild hair and dirty fingernails, looking completely out of place anywhere but the desert. His appeal is the same as that of Into the Wild or My Side of the Mountain, which I'm currently re-reading: the windy, rainy, sweltering, harsh outdoors brought to bear on one person and bringing him to some precipice, bringing out the truth in him.

But more than just being a mountain man, John the B. is my favorite because he's so self-effacing. His whole life and existence are about glorifying God, announcing Jesus' coming, and he's okay with that. He never (on the record, at least) complains about playing second fiddle or wishes for more power. He has the right perspective. Even non-Christians, I think, can learn from his de-emphasis of self, his intense sense of focus and purpose. That is what Lent's about when done right: let's trim something that doesn't lead us closer to Him. Let's move ourselves an inch closer to the back seat and away from the controls. Let's bow our heads even though our necks are stiff from pride. Good thing we have forty days to practice.

Stir Crazy

2011-03-10T14:09:00.000-08:00

It turns out if I'm used to running or biking or at least going somewhere for work each day, and then I have one day with none of those because it's intermittently rainy and there's no work assignment, it gets pretty bad around 4:30, especially if I also expected to hear back from another seminary and didn't. I'm about to go to the grocery store (after 5 now)and almost bursting with the excitement of leaving the house. I did go out to get the mail, but apparently that wasn't enough.

Just wanted to get that out before I settled down to something lent-y.

So. The main thing Christians need to remember about Easter, and thus about Lent, is that it's the most important thing in our religion. Christmas has become a bigger holiday in many ways, but it celebrates Jesus' birthday, and we all have one of those. Easter celebrates his resurrection, which is at the heart of everything Christians are supposed to believe. And it was scary and powerful and dark, nothing to do with pastel colors and bunnies. At Easter we celebrate, and during Lent we anticipate, the emptiness of the tomb, the gaping hole where his body should have been, the power of his absence. The question marks he left in his wake. His return and all that it means for the world and for us. We must make sure we focus on what we are really honoring, not the trappings that have come in since. Let's all take these days to honor the stinging power of God's love, the depressing Friday when for a moment he left, and the sharp blade of mercy that tore the curtain in two.

March, Thus Far

2011-03-09T20:29:00.000-08:00

I've gotten into Princeton Theological Seminary, which I must say is a pretty big deal. I'm visiting next Friday and then hitting Boston University, Union Theological Seminary in New York, and Union Theological Seminary in Richmond at the beginning of the next week. The cool part is that I can't visit schools on a weekend because I need to see classes, so on Saturday and Sunday I have 48 hours to kill in the New York/Boston/Jersey/wherever I want to go area! Kevin told me to go to Spider-Man because it has so many problems that it's cheap. Who knows what I'll end up doing? It might be nice to sit in a hotel room and read. Let me know if you have any ideas for fun, cheap/free things around there.

It's remarkable how much I am attached to this "new" future. I put "new" in quotes because it's been floating around in my head and heart for so long but only now becoming real. When I was in grad school, and before, I wasn't thinking much about my future except to be anxious about it. Now, I'm almost more excited about whatever service and ministry I'll engage in after seminary than I am about being in school! That's a first, let me tell you, and part of why it's the right step.

That attachment to the future, though, sure does dilute certain elements of the present, namely my job. I feel pretty checked-out about work much of the time. But luckily, the rest of life is burstingly vivid! Wilmington is so dear, I'm living it up with my friends, and I've begun working out first thing in the morning, which is going surprisingly well for me. When I think about leaving here, I block it out except to dream about the huge going-away party I'm going to have. It's going to be an all-day affair.

Aha! I just thought of what I'm doing for lent! BLOGGING! I hadn't thought of anything but giving blood, which is quite a big thing for me but only a one-time deal. Now, I am happy with the decision to blog daily. Hold me accountable, will you? Uh, maybe I can get some kind of waiver for when I'm on my seminary scouting trip. I've considered taking my computer because some of the housing has internet access. We shall see.

Year in Review

2011-01-06T19:32:00.001-08:00

I liked what Erin did by looking back at 2010 on her blog, so I am going to do that too.

In January, I rang in the new year with a great party, attended mostly by my Sunday School class. I had another party a week later, for everyone from school who wasn't in town.

In February, I went to Charleston with friends for less than 48 hours.

In March, I had my thesis reading and then left for nine days of writing in a cabin for Spring Break. Then I turned my thesis in.

In April, I went to Denver for AWP and was swept up in bubbling writer-love.

In May, I graduated. Mom and Dad came, and we ate at Sweet 'N' Savory. Later, Stuart googlechatted me to say he was at Ocean Isle and I should come visit. I left a couple hours later and stayed for a few days, drinking coffee out of a Sid Luck cup, reading, swimming in the ocean, sitting on his dock, looking for jobs side by side on our respective computers. We watched Sister Act on DVD one night, and the next night, Sister Act 2 was on TV. We did a puzzle of hot-air balloons.

In June, Bill retired (our senior pastor) and Randy came. We love them both a lot. I got a job as a newspaper reporter and photographer, which is mostly fun and educational.

In August, I went to Seagrove for the second annual Seagrove Potters for Peace. I got two mugs, a plate, and a necklace that I wore almost every day for several months. I went to homecoming at my church in Henderson and got a new phone.

In October, I went with Lindsey and Lyndsay to spend a couple nights in Lindsey's family's cabin and hike in Hanging Rock State Park. I watched Exit Through the Gift Shop, which may be the best movie I saw all year. Unless Away We Go was this year, which I don't think it was.

In November, I went to Asheville to see John's percussion ensemble perform. I went to Pilgrimage with the youth and had a stranger tell me I'm called to ministry. I hosted a party to honor James Thurber's birthday a month early and baked a cake from his mom's recipe. I went to the third annual Celebration of Seagrove Potters and had dinner with Philip and Sims, whom I hadn't seen in probably years.

Somewhere in there, Jonah and Jack were born, a few months apart. Lindsey got engaged just after Christmas. Michelle was named News Director at WHQR. Lyndsay moved to Denver. Mike and Katie moved to the Charlotte area. I became better friends with Anna, Rachel, and Allison by watching the Thursday night shows with them. I learned to play Telephone Pictionary. I fell hard for NPR. I got to where I could run all the way around the Loop at Wrightsville Beach, stopped running for too long, and now I'm almost back there. Our department's new publishing imprint used my handwriting in its logo. I started shopping strategically, first by paying attention to the sales at Harris Teeter, then by combining them with coupons. Just today, I got 80-something dollars worth of groceries for $30.01. My small group stopped meeting formally, and there was no rejoicing, but I did survive it. I met a guy on eHarmony but had to file him under "fun while it lasted" after only a couple months. I finished the last half of the Novel Class and the last semester of grad school. Beginning in the summer, much to my surprise, I began my third and most serious round of thinking about seminary, which culminated (thus far) in last night's creation of a master list of what each one needs for the application. That would be the biggest outward and measurable thing of 2010, that decision to take a deep breath and plunge into a commitment that big. A pretty big deal inwardly as well.

So there you have it. 2010 at a glance. It was a doozy. More tears, I think, and certainly for more reasons, than any other year of my adult life. But I don't look back and see the tears. I see unprecedented changes at an unprecedented rate, and more love than I know what to do with, and wide-eyed learning and curiosity and hope. I see a farmer putting his hands into very rich soil, preparing it for breathtaking growth.

Any day now...

2010-12-08T13:36:00.000-08:00

...I'll be ready to sit and read, or enjoy a loaf of fresh bread, or settle down with one of the seven $1 DVDs I got at Harris Teeter, without doing mental wheelies and donuts about:

-teaching English in France (darn you, UNCW careers website, for raising long-dead possibilities!)
-the Sojourners internship
-what I would do with my couch, bed, books, &c in either of the above cases
-seminary/div school wheres and whens
-the one-hour Office that's coming on tomorrow. Holly's back!
-Christmas baking and how I can limit it to ingredients I have on hand and whether my modifications to an existing recipe will be successful
-whether it will still be this cold on Saturday when I cover a Christmas parade
-whether I should buy more socks or assume this cold snap will be over soon
-when I'm going to get my necklace fixed
-the yoga I should be doing
-the running that the cold keeps me from doing (oh, shucks)
-How I Met Your Mother season 4, which is seriously tempting me to drop the more grown-up and necessary work I've vowed to do
-this very blog
-the fatigue I've felt today and yesterday even though I got almost 8 hours of sleep each night and haven't exercised. I think cold is tiring, in part because I hunch and tense my shoulders and fists like crazy.
-plenty of other stuff on plenty of scales, from "where does that comma belong?" to "where do I belong?"

Bill said this morning that it's exciting, my having so many possibilities before me. I said I had hoped that would be over and I could sit back for a while. He said I guess God didn't have that in mind. While I have had a great few weeks at work, almost eerily so, it still doesn't feel like a long-term fit. There's too much tension in the rest of life, too many things changing course. And then this stupid France thing comes up (I'm talking thirty minutes ago) and muddies the waters even further. The deadline is January 1. The engagement would begin in October. I have no clue how many people apply or how hard it is to get, but I am demonstrably awesome at French. Unlike with seminary or some of the other possibilities, this feels pretty final, like if I don't do it this go-round I will not do it. The paperwork alone is enough to deter me if I don't feel a loud and clear call to go there. But my heart did truly leap within me when I saw the possibility, more than it has in a long time. Maybe that was the coffee.

Here I Am Again

2010-11-29T12:23:00.000-08:00

Not exactly on my own, but back after such a glorious four days or so at Mom and Dad's house for Thanksgiving. I didn't do anything I didn't want to do! And I did a lot of stuff I did want to do, like watching Date Night and eating excellent food and walking around the neighborhood and reading old New York Timeses.

And then I came here. There were a lot of tears on the way back. It's the first time I've been upset to come back to Wilmington, and one of very few times I've not wanted to return to any place I've lived. It seems to mark the point where it's clear that a move is coming. Without Lyndsay here, and with Lindsey in an important relationship, with most of my school friends finna graduate and move on, with people talking about not having supper club and with too many other changes spinning me around, the town loses much of its sparkle. Sure, downtown is sweet, sure there's a selection of beaches, but with no one to enjoy them with, what's the point? Today, I'd rather rip off the band-aid and start over somewhere new than stay here and watch things deteriorate. Both options are pretty unpleasant, but the idea of something new has its familiar pull. So the relentless search continues, as the emotional and logistical sides of the problem take turns being front and center. Mostly I just want to lie down.

In Date Night, there's a scene where Tina Fey tells Steve Carell (her husband) how hard it is for her to handle everything, how exhausted she is with all of her responsibilities. You've seen twice how she asks him to do something and then decides it'd be easier to do it herself. So during this conversation, Steve says, "You know what would make some of those things a whole lot easier? Me." He says she doesn't trust him to do things right, so she takes everything on herself instead. And he may use too much jelly on the PB&J, or he may buy the wrong kind of toy, but he says he will surprise her. And he genuinely wants to do these things and anything else he can to help.

At the time, it was a sweet scene and a pointed observation about how many couples operate. But later, as I thought it over, I realized I'm just like Tina Fey's character in that way. There's a way things should be done, and I'm the one who has it figured out. Other people might mess things up, but more importantly, I am resistant to letting even God handle things for me. I'm so insistent on my system that I leave no room for any aid, even from the best helper in the universe. So now I'm at that wretched-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach point where I know what change I need to make but am not at all excited about making it. Because it involves change, not just changing circumstances which can sometimes be fun, but changing myself. Changing who I am and how I think and feel. It also requires trust, which I've almost given up on ever having or understanding. And humility. And a dozen other qualities I don't even know I need.

So here's to holidays like Thanksgiving where family and love and food and fun can help us forget how much work we have ahead of us. To quiet car rides that help us remember. To towns like Wilmington where the friend parade never stops, and to the future, where we'll at least have another day's worth of experience to help us figure things out.

Weekend Bonanza, part 5: Seagrove

2010-11-23T15:15:00.000-08:00

I covered a sheriff's department meeting for work at 8 a.m. and wrote it up, then headed to the middle of the state for a weekend of relaxation. I had a grand vision of spending all of Saturday reading, maybe watching something on TV, and generally having nothing to worry about and nowhere to be. Friday night would be the opening gala for the Celebration of Seagrove Potters.

But first, I wanted to see a bookbinding exhibit at UNC-Greensboro. I called my friend Sims, who lives somewhat near there, after seeing a sign that I always see that said "Sims Pottery." Sims' first name is Margaret, and she hates it. Her middle name is Sims. So I called to see if she wanted to see this exhibit with me and have a cone at the Yum-Yum. Alas, she was at work, but she invited me to see Harry Potter with her on Saturday or have dinner. I squirmed at losing my grand vision of relaxation, but it's not every day that you get to see Philip and Sims (or anyone like them!), so we said we'd talk later.

The bookbinding exhibit was neat, but it was a much smaller deal than I thought it was. It was in a room where people were working, and it was sort of like, "Oh, that, yeah, that's over there." And they were all leather-bound for posterity, not handmade in the way I had expected. I was glad I went. Then I had my child-sized Yum-Yum cone, which was the perfect amount, and got on the road to the storied house on Badin Lake.

Mom had just gotten there and was turning on the water. I helped her unload some slate she'd bought at the slate mine on her way there, and then I swept the leaves off the dock and we talked about law enforcement and how I feel much more tender-hearted toward them and thankful for them than I did before starting at this job. Not that I was like, "cops suck," but I took a rather cynical view before.

We got to Luck's bean cannery for the gala (I love that word), and there were fewer cars in the parking lot, and the music inside was too loud at first. Someone told me later that the parking was freer because they hadn't let potters park there this time, which made me feel better because I was worried there were fewer folks. Mom bought a batter bowl by Vernon Owens and some tiny vases by Michael Mahan and probably some other things. I saw a lot that I liked but nothing I needed, and I was perfectly content to just soak up the beauty. I lined up a jeweler, Jennie Lorette Keats of JLK Jewelry, to make my wedding ring. Now just to nail down every other aspect of my wedding, including the dude....

We came back tired and happy and made tea and slept til 10 the next morning. We listened to Car Talk and Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me, then went for a walk and came back and had frozen pizzas for lunch. I read for a bit and then left to meet Sims and Philip in Asheboro, which was about 40 minutes for me and an hour for them. Clearly we were not as close as we thought. We talked about almost nothing but Harry Potter as they debriefed themselves from the latest film. The restaurant was Sagebrush, which was neat because they served the water in mason jars and gave you a bucket of peanuts as an appetizer. My food wasn't very good, but I was happy to be with them. We walked across the parking lot to the mall and got a dessert at the Books-a-Million cafe, which was surprisingly good. Then we walked around the mall a bit, going in the pet store and the toy store, and said goodnight. A very good time with very good friends.

Sunday broke my expectations in every way, most of it unpleasant. I meant to leave at 9 and got on the road at 10. I wanted to be back in time to have Zaxby's before Disciple because it was having a fundraiser for one of our ministries, but I had to go straight to church. I wanted to spend the afternoon reading there before youth group, but it there was a youth activity I didn't know about and a meeting I didn't know about, so I took part in those instead. Youth group was good and did not mess up my expectations for it. Then I thought we were going to have our not-small-group-anymore-just-hanging-out meeting at someone's house, but they had decided to go out to eat, which I did not have the money for and didn't want to do. So I was very grumpy for the start of that, and I think they could tell, but once I had resigned myself to sitting and watching them eat, I was happy to be with my friends. Until Lyndsay said she's moving to Colorado, but we agreed not to talk about that anymore beyond the basic announcement. 48 hours later, I have not let it sink in, nor do I want to. All I can say just now is, Colorado, you're in for a treat.

When I got home, hoping to sleep in the next morning, I had an email asking me to cover something at 9 a.m., meaning I had to leave the house at 7:30. God was definitely telling me to kiss expectations goodbye. Or it was just a kind of sucky day. Probably a bit of both. But the question is, without expectations, why do anything? And where's the line between healthy expectations that help you plan things, whether it's an evening or a life, and harmful ones that set you up for disappointment? I'm still smarting a little from the relentlessness of that day and trying to process what role expectations should play in life.

The next and final installment in the Weekend Bonanza series is, of course, Thanksgiving! My expectations are already high and fully formed. ;)

Weekend Bonanza, part 4: Pilgrimage

2010-11-17T12:35:00.000-08:00

Friday morning, I was going to pick up police reports (I realize this is the third mention of them in as many posts on this blog, but please don't think they're taking over my life. It's just that I do them at the end of the week, and the posts are always about the weekends) and I saw a car in front of me go off the road, like way off the road. I wasn't sure anyone else had seen it, so I stopped on the shoulder, grabbed my AAA card and phone, and stepped gingerly toward the ditch. The driver, still inside, asked how bad it was. Not very. The bumper was pretty much falling off, but it looked like it would still be very much driveable. The driver, a woman my age or younger, got out and tried to push the car out of the ditch, then decided to have it towed. She told me she'd been working 80-hour weeks in Jacksonville at a tattoo shop, living in Wilmington and driving back and forth, and she'd fallen asleep at the wheel. Poor thing. I told her not to work 80 hours anymore. She was physically unhurt and wasn't even crying. Five other people stopped, but the situation seemed pretty much under control. The woman had called her mom, who was looking up towing options, and there didn't seem to be much else we could do. I asked if her phone was fully charged, which it was, and she hugged me, and I went on.

The point of that story was, that's plenty of excitement for me in one day. On my way back, I got a call from my roommate, who was freaking out about something out of our control, and that added a lot to the day's excitement quota. We've dealt with it now, but it made me late for leaving for Pilgrimage, a conference-wide Methodist youth event in Fayetteville. Luckily I was only late by a few minutes. I jumped in the van with Jared (associate pastor) and three guys and tenth-grade girls, and we were off.

I couldn't have asked for a better van of folks for the weekend! They were always in the vehicle on time and never short on entertaining observations, and Jared is so dear and insightful, to the point that many of his questions and statements make me mad with their unnecessary insightfulness. I had a great time with those kids all weekend.

The speaker was Bart Campolo, Tony Campolo's son. He was very entertaining and thought-provoking, for the kids and for the adult leaders. He talked about loving people like Jesus loves, something we all need to hear.

Last year, they had some hip young pastors talk about their calling for a few minutes and say you could go to one of the tables if you might be called or interested in ministry. I remember it from last year because I wanted them to be quiet and let me go on my merry way. I was actually very curious, even semi-anxious, about whether they'd have something like that this year. Of course, they did, on Saturday morning. Different individuals, same setup. They told you to go to the Board of Ordained Ministry table to pursue those ideas of ministry, etc.

So I went to the Board of Ordained Ministry table, and I ended up talking to the guy who took Jared's place at his last church when Jared came to Pine Valley. So we talk a little about seminary and ministry and calling, and I cry a little and we pray and I cry more, and I don't remember a lot of the conversation but I do remember that Nathan said, "Just from talking to you right now, I think you're called."

Whoa. "Okay, thank you."

On the way back to my seat, I felt every possible emotion about that statement. It was the most clear-cut thing anyone had told me about the possibility of a call to ministry for me, which I've been exploring for a long time. I can resent it, enjoy it, be flattered, get excited, remain confused, go wide-eyed and dry-mouthed with fear, abhor the thought of so much change at once, or any number of other options. For a few minutes, I even rationalized it away with the idea that he probably says that to everyone, or thought I wanted to hear it, or had some reason other than truth for saying such a lovely and brutal thing. But the one thing I can't do is ignore it. You don't get a gift like that every day.

So I sort of dream-walked my way through the rest of the weekend as I processed that and cared for kids and kept things going. And I'm still dream-walking a bit. Still very confused about timing and specifics. But I know now that I am going to seminary someday, and I am leading God's people someday, and I'm not going to feel this tension between career and personal life someday, and someday I'm going to see how my little jigsaw-puzzle life fits together and how it joins at the edges with everyone else's, and I'm going to continue to know without a doubt, like I know now, that I'm in the right place, doing the right thing, following where God leads, letting the questions be questions and enjoying the rest while it lasts.

Weekend Bonanza, part 3: Asheville

2010-11-17T12:20:00.000-08:00

I hustled on Monday through Wednesday to afford Thursday and Friday off (the 4th and 5th). Wednesday was especially jam-packed and fun because we went to the Little Dipper for fondue, then Dusty and Ace, then back to my house for a brief celebration of James Thurber and to enjoy his cake recipe. It was the first time I'd made a layer cake, and possibly the first time I'd made cake from scratch. It turned out very well! We also had some really good wine that Aunt Kim had given me. It was sparkling but red! Total pleasant shocker. I got to meet one of my friends' dad and grandmother, who were delightful. After everyone left, I worked on my articles until later than I'd like to admit.

Thursday morning, I stopped in Beulaville on the way out to take a few pictures, then I was on my way to the mountains! I hadn't really put two and two together and realized I was going to the mountains in the fall, which made the leaf colors all the more exciting. I met John at the pizza/brewing place and had a beer before dropping my car off at his house. It's an awesome house! Basically a large and inviting log cabin with plenty of room for everyone, including two dogs and two drum sets.

The percussion ensemble concert was fun, and they're very talented. We met up with a cousin and her wife for a late dinner, and almost everyone had pumpkin beer. John's girlfriend is delightful.

Friday morning, I went to Malaprop's (swoon) for a quick coffee and then we all went to Twelve Bones for lunch. Let me tell you about Twelve Bones. I had only had ribs at Medieval Times and at a home cookout, but now, now I understand what a rib is destined to be and why people want to eat them. 12 Bones has all sorts of sauces that remind me a bit of Flaming Amy's combinations, like blueberry chipotle and ginger something and you know, fruit + spicy. They had your basics too. On the side, I had jalapeno cheese grits and mac & cheese plus the standard cornbread. It was an outstanding meal.

I went back to Mom and Dad's house for the night to break up the trip. We watched the Thursday night shows while I typed up police reports. The next morning, we went to the Methodist church's fall bazaar for breakfast, and I saw some nice jewelry and they bought our holiday desserts to freeze. I left mid-morning and took some photos in Richlands for work on my way back. The weekend was a whirlwind but very much worth the trouble, and I was so glad to see my family as well as spend some time in Asheville. Every time I go there, I'm scheming to stay. Didn't come up with anything feasible this go-round, but I'll keep working on the plan.

Weekend Bonanza, part 2: Bible Study Training Workshop

2010-10-31T18:56:00.000-07:00

I got home from a work meeting a little before (or after?) five on Friday and typed up an article and a police report real quick, then hopped over to Port City Community Church for a somewhat mysterious Bible study training workshop. It was Friday evening and all day Saturday. It turned out to be very fun and informative. A lot of work, but definitely the good kind. And it involved colored pencils! We learned how to observe, interpret, and apply the meaning of a biblical text.

First, we found out the hard facts of the book: who wrote it and for whom, why they wrote it, where it took place, when, etc. Then we went through and marked every instance of first-person pronouns or the author's name, and second-person pronouns or the recipient's name. (This was for a letter. I guess some of it would be different for history and other types of books.) Using those markings, we compiled lists of information about the author and the recipient, in this case Paul and Titus. So each time one of them was mentioned, we'd write down what it said about him. Pretty cool. We did the same thing later with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. We also used different colors to mark key words, time indicators, comparisons, contrasts, and more. The teacher was very enthusiastic, and the process is more fun than it sounds like. It was so different from the way I often read the Bible, which is much like the way I read other books but with more underlining. Reading with this new technique was like opening a jar with a rubber pancake thing to help you grip, while regular reading is like opening it with just your hands: it can be done either way, but one makes you feel stronger and gets the job done better. It is very time-consuming but very worth it.

So that's this weekend's bliss blitz installment. Up next: Asheville! Preceded by the Thurber bash and baking a cake which I don't think I've ever done from scratch, and Dusty & Ace and fondue and a whole lot of work in order to make Asheville happen. Bring it all on! I have a lot to look forward to.

Bonanza Blitz of Weekends, part 1: Lay Speaker Training

2010-10-28T12:04:00.000-07:00

It was not at all what I expected. Perhaps in part because of my Creative Writing background (side note: I love using "background" in that way, perhaps in part because of my pretentious background), I thought I'd be gettin' with other wannabe preachers or confused folk who love God and read the same book I did that said do lay speaker training because it might help you discern some things. I thought we would make on-the-spot mini-sermons and get or give feedback on them, or maybe see some sample ones on video or read about them. Do's and don'ts of public speaking/preaching, combined with a workshop, is what I thought it was.

But no. It was more like a rundown of Methodists vs. the world, not a combative "vs." but one that points out how we, in our stated-and-written-down beliefs, are different from, say, Presbyterians, which made me none too comfortable, and surprise, made nothing any iota clearer. It was very educational and pretty fun. I met some cool people. But I did not learn anything about speaking or preaching. They ought to re-title it "Being a Good Methodist Training."

I must tell you that I did advanced lay speaker training without having taken Basic, which everyone said was OK even without my asking them, probably because they could tell from my voice on the phone that I'm way too smart for Basic. That may have had something to do with my off-the-mark expectations; like, for instance, maybe basic lay speaker training covers some of the things I thought I'd learn. But we won't know that 'til the spring, if ever.

Nothing is OK with me lately. Too much is changing at once, and everyone else seems all but oblivious to it. Our small group is "ending," as one member so bluntly put it. Too many people are moving away, or getting ready to, or hoping to. Having roommates stresses me out, and my job is as bad as ever. I'm helplessly watching yet another once-hopeful romantic prospect fizzle and die. Basically, I can't name one part of my life that's not in flux, and it ain't no eustress either. I can handle some pain if I learn from it, but I don't feel like I'm learning. I can handle change in one or two sectors at a time, but I feel like I'm playing the least fun game of Whack-a-Mole ever. You get one crisis taken care of (or at least learn to live with it), and another comes up. You plug a hole in the stern, and another leak springs in the bow, and another, and another, and they're coming faster. Those games, they start out slow, but that's just a mean and deceptive trick. You always lose.

I know the right answer is to give the game over to God, or trade in your boat for his, whichever metaphor we're going with. But I'm so attached to my way of doing it, and I don't know enough about his way or what to expect. I'm pretty sure nothing is going to get better until I trust him enough to hand over something, anything. But that feels really far away. So here I am, going down with the boat, but isn't it a beauty? And I get to be the captain.

Bliss Blitz

2010-10-19T12:30:00.000-07:00

The next six consecutive weekends are going to be filled with the best kind of busyness: travel, holidays, learning, and general breaking-of-routine. At first I was reluctant to fill in the last couple of spots, but then I thought, no way. These are all things I want to do, and as my new-mom friend Stacey pointed out, I may not be able to act this way if I ever have a kid, or even just a different kind of job.

Let's take a look:
October 23 (Saturday): Lay speaker training for the United Methodist Church district
October 29 and 30 (Saturday and Sunday): Bible study training workshop through Port City Community Church
November 4 (Thursday, but I will do my utmost to stay all weekend): my brother's percussion ensemble concert in Asheville. Both of my parents will be there, and I was just reminded that a cousin is in Asheville, too! This one depends on my ability to get all of my stories written by Wednesday so I can check out on Thursday morning. I am feeling not certain but very hopeful.
November 12-14 (Friday-Sunday): Pilgrimage with PVUMC youth
November 19-21 (Friday-Sunday): Celebration of Seagrove Potters
November 25 (Thursday, but again it will be a weekend-long affair): Thanksgiving

And that's just the weekends! I am also going to see Banksy's first movie, a Halloween puppet show at the art museum featuring a story from Ecotone, Dusty and Ace AKA Philip and Clyde, fondue, Writers' Week, my James Thurber party, a thesis reading by Erin Sroka and Laurin Penland, a reading by John Sullivan, and who knows what else is going to come up during that time! Sometimes it frustrates me that all the fun seems to happen at once. Then when it's going on, I sure don't mind.

And ideally, this will give my blog somethin' to talk about. So stay tuned to see just how blissfully exhausted I get, and how much I learn, and how much I enjoy my six-week powerhouse of fun.

My favorite?

2010-10-13T12:50:00.000-07:00

I hesitate to use the word "favorite" in most circumstances, or else I water it down and change the literal meaning so that all I'm saying is I like whatever it is. When asked my favorite color, I say, "It depends on what's being colored." A wall favorite color is different from my car favorite color or a shirt favorite color. Same with food, movies, music; it all depends on my mood and the situation.

But I think I have a favorite writer. Reading James Thurber feels like sleeping in one's own bed, the smell of one's own home, something that sets things right, something comfortable but not in a complacent way. I feel so fully "me" when I'm reading him. I cannot put my finger on why.

We had a dry spell for a while, but a few days ago I started reading People Have More Fun than Anybody, a book of never-before-collected items to celebrate 100 years since Jim's birth (published in 1994). There's a cake recipe from him in it, which to me cries out for a party. And thus it is. I'm celebrating his birthday early because it's in December and no one wants an extra party then. Making the cake and giving everyone a chance to read their favorite things by him. I haven't had a party in a long time!

This particular book is all items that would otherwise be pretty much lost, things from magazines or papers that hadn't been put in book form ever before. And that may be why I'm so impressed: he wrote these things as little ephemera to make extra bucks, not to be literarily lasting or meaningful, but oh how he is! It's like if someone collected the articles I'm writing in 84 years, and they stood the test of time. One thing Michael J. Rosen's introduction points out is Thurber's ability to refer to his time--fads, celebrities we don't know about anymore, sundry pop culture items--and still be relevant today. He mentions these things, and they're confusing briefly or require an editor's note to explain them, but the way he talks about them and the things he says are still enjoyable to read. Basically, we don't have to know what he's talking about to get what he's talking about. That's pretty amazing to me.

Also, I may have known his eyesight failed as he aged, and I certainly knew he did sweet cartoons, but I never put the two together. Apparently he was drawing in the dark some of the time, which is not hard to believe when you look at the drawings but is nonetheless impressive. Oh, and Matisse called him the best artist in New York.

2010-09-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

To continue the saying-nice-words thing, "extravaganza" is another of my favorites.

Our Nooma video today was about how death is the engine of life. I knew about the seed-has-to-die-to-become-the-plant thing, but I hadn't thought about how food must become dead before it can nourish us. Good stuff. We ended up talking more about image and ego and how much we try to be a certain way and why. One of my friends mentioned cleaning before people come over, and I started thinking about one of my best friends growing up. She had two sisters and a dog, and their house was always a gracious and fun mess. I don't remember ever seeing her kitchen counters because there were always stacks of dishes. It was one of my favorite places to be! Her dad had the first DVD I ever saw (Stigmata--didn't watch it, just looked at the disc itself), and he dreamed of having a motorcycle. One time, I went over there for New Year's, and we did snap-n-pops right on the kitchen floor! Inside! That was also the first time I saw What Not to Wear. And there was almost always something chocolate to enjoy at their house.

So the lesson (for me) is, cleanliness is overrated. I never went to someone's house and wanted to come back because it was so clean. I want to come back because I love them, enjoy their company, and feel at rest there. Personal hygeine is another story, but at least as far as spaces go, there's a lot to be said for a welcoming disarray. At the very least, your guests are never afraid of messing something up.

Excellent Day

2010-09-15T19:40:00.001-07:00

This morning I slept about an hour later than usual and felt it pleasantly in my joints upon waking. I visited Karen at the Little Chapel to pick up a book I'd loaned her. She told me I'd lost weight! I always love seeing her.

I went to the Poplar Grove farmers' market to buy tomato juice from Alexis and Betsy, but they gave it to me for free because they liked the article I'd written about them. They had framed a copy! I also picked up a Pink Lady apple and two sweet chili peppers from a booth that had almost a whole table of just peppers and another of just apples, plus fragrant muscadines, blueberries, eggplant, and more. The peppers were individually priced, which pleased me for some reason (as in not by the pound or ounce).

I then stopped at a thrift store and, after much trying-on, bought only books: a Hafiz/Hafez volume and Miss Rumphius. There was a Little House on the Prairie cookbook, but I was happier to glance at it than I would be to own it.

My assignment for the day was to cover the United Methodist Women's Game-a-rama. They were so sweet and insisted that I eat from the buffet. Shockingly, I was happy to see the veggie plate and gleefully took carrots and broccoli to dip in the ranch dressing. I got three or four little desserts and after a couple of bites, thought, "I don't really want to finish this." Who am I? It was a great feeling, to eat good things and skip less-good things not because I felt obligated but because that was what I wanted. I never. (I didn't actually skip the desserts because I was worried about someone seeing me throw away their own creation. And because I was just so incredulous that I fell back on habit. Or something.)

I went in to the office after that and got some interesting work news about a possible change. I saw on email that Harris Teeter's baguettes were half off, so I went there after work to pick up one of those and a few other things. Came home and read, then I went to have FONDUE at the Little Dipper! I can hardly think of anything I'd rather do than dip things in chocolate and cheese, especially in such rich and relaxed company.

Now, to make some more days like it. Go!

Hundredth Post!

2010-09-06T12:32:00.001-07:00

Sometimes when I'm by myself, I say nice words out loud. I usually start with "striations" and "cumulonimbus."

A Pretty Sweet Week

2010-09-04T07:59:00.000-07:00

Here I am chillin' at Panera of a Saturday morning, on the first day in recent memory that I haven't had anything scheduled. I do have to write an article, but it's a fun one and doesn't feel burdensome. Later, I'm going to run and shower for the first time in at least a week (the run, not the shower) and make granola and green tea and stretch and maybe call Lyndsay for movie/show-on-DVD chill time. This is what Saturdays should be!

So the article I'm (ostensibly) about to write: a response to Shadowlands, the play based on C. S. Lewis's late-in-life romance. I didn't know a dang thing about his life! And I learned it in the most enjoyable of ways. He met Joy Gresham when she was 41 and he was 58. He was a bachelor, and she got a divorce soon after they met but not because they met. They had corresponded by post for a long time. She came to visit from America, and then after her divorce she ended up moving to the same town as him, Oxford. I won't give anything else away, but I will tell you it's a great and unusual story. This is Big Dawg Productions' second time wowing me with atypical romance, which is the only kind I can really stomach in stories. A few weeks ago, I saw their production of Neil Simon's Chapter Two, a more light-hearted but still very affecting love story.

On Thursday night, I went to see the musical The Secret Garden, also for work. It was weird and artsy, like with ghost people showing up during regular scenes so you know they're remembering the past, and red cloths to represent cholera. But it's The Secret Garden, and by no means did they mess it up. I'm so ready to read it again!

Both plays made me feel kind of icky and eye-rolly, like "la la la, I'm not listening," because they were both about trust and loving people even though you know you're going to lose them. My deep dark side said, "Psshht. That's all well and good for other people, but I'm not capable of, or not interested in, that kind of love. I prefer the illusion that I and everyone I care about will live forever, and if maintaining that illusion means keeping everyone at arm's length, then that's what I will do." Not my best moments. Growing up is hard to do, especially when you keep thinking you're done. But Lewis's wife in the play said, "The pain then [later, when one person dies and the other has to handle it] is part of the happiness now. It's part of the deal."

Oh, and the actor who played Lewis was phenomenal. Real tears, I saw.

Speaking of illusions, it hit me a few weeks ago that disillusionment is a good thing. It doesn't feel good, and when I say I'm disillusioned I usually mean "I hated that." But when faced with a choice between illusion and reality, a choice we don't always have, you're not in your right mind if you consistently choose the illusion.

And I think I have some solid thoughts for my article! But before I go on to that, I'll leave on a lighter note.

The boss called my coworker at 8 a.m. the other day to tell her a plane had crashed on I-40. As she was getting ready, coworker thought to look it up and make sure it was true before getting all worked up over it. She found nothing online, so she called the county EMS. The desk worker who answered knew nothing about a plane, but coworker left a message for the director. He called her back much later, laughing hard, and said it was a crop duster. It happens pretty frequently, he said: people see the crop dusters flying very low and think they're planes in trouble. This one landed, on purpose, in a field, not by accident on I-40.
So coworker called boss to fill her in. During that same call, boss said, "Oh, and ask someone about the fire on Teachey Road on Wednesday."
I am so proud of coworker for thinking of it then and not after hanging up. She said, "Are you sure it wasn't a cookout?"

Also, I was really mad over food and drink being missing from the fridge, and then one roommate wrote me a note explaining that she'd been taking Ambien and it made her sleep-eat. The only explanation that makes me not mad! And the last one I would ever have come up with.

Oh, is God ever good.

New frontiers!

2010-08-28T11:06:00.001-07:00

Woooo...I am blogging on my own computer at my parents' house! They have wireless now, and I got it to work all by myself.

Also, I just got a new phone with a keyboard for texting and the ability to take and send pictures. I love how if you just wait long enough, you can get up-to-date phones for free (with mail-in rebate). I would never have paid extra for such features, but since they were in the tier that I'm "due for," I'm like, why not? I love it already. And even though someone told me on the phone yesterday that the Verizon store was open at 10 and it really opened at 11 so I had to wait an hour at Waffle House, the service was very good and helpful. She didn't try to sell me anything extra or unnecessary. Then I had lunch with Keith, my parents' church's pastor, and brought home a whole bunch of pizza that I'll probably leave for Mom and Dad. A good day already, and I've got the whole church homecoming ahead of me still.

My Precious

2010-08-22T13:37:00.001-07:00

And while I'm doing pictures, I decided to take some of my recent pottery purchases in Seagrove. In the group picture, the bowl is Chris Luther's, the teacup/teabowl/wine cup is Tom Gray's, and the light green mug is Travis Owens' from Jugtown. All three of those were part of the Seagrove Potters for Peace event, as well as the bird pendant at bottom by Jennie Lorette Keats at Jugtown. The plate is Tom Gray's, and the dark mug at right is Michael Mahan's of From the Ground Up Pottery. I call it my caveman mug because it's big and heavy. The others show some of the details.

This last is a group shot of some of the pieces I've had for a while. The wine goblet is part of a six-piece set my mom got in Scotland; the purple mug was a gift from Dr. Wills for graduation, bought at Summitt Coffee; the green mug I found at the Habitat for Humanity store in Cornelius; the blue bowl in the center is from Taize; the blue and green bowl is from Dirt Works Pottery in Seagrove, a gift from Mom; and the two small bowls in front, I made during my pottery class at the Icehouse in Davidson.

Hooray for pottery! Thanks for indulging my image fix.

Nest Analysis

2010-08-22T13:28:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to present some pictures from my sea turtle nest analysis assignment.

Here are the two Sea Turtle Project area coordinators excavating the nest. Sea turtle nests are shaped like an upside-down lightbulb, large at the bottom and narrow near the surface. The left pile between them is hatched eggs; the right pile is unhatched ones.

Here is the baby turtle they found alive. They had to put him in a bucket and release him only after dark because baby turtles are too vulnerable and visible to predators when it is light.

Here they are using a flashlight to candle the unhatched eggs and tell if they are fertilized. If they had found any, they would have reburied them in anundisturbed nest.

Just a link for today

2010-08-19T17:49:00.000-07:00

I've been reading my daily Sojourners emails much more attentively lately, because I may one day apply for their sweet internship. It's been extremely rewarding and enlightening, such that I mourn what I missed by deleting so many before.

Here's just one of the great articles they linked to.

http://blog.sojo.net/2010/08/19/football-and-ramadan

Very inspiring.

Driving along in the deluge today, just reciting the names of those I'm thankful for was such a powerful prayer that it brought me to tears. That includes my three devoted followers! Blog followers, that is. I don't have any personal followers. Yet.

Seagrove! Peace! Turtles!

2010-08-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

I went to Seagrove this weekend for the second annual Potters for Peace event. It was great fun, especially since I didn't have any work or research to do at all. I bought a ton of great stuff that I will treasure for a long time.

Last night, I got to see my friend Stuart oh so briefly on Topsail Island. We got dinner and then went to a turtle nest analysis. 72 hours after the nest had hatched, they were counting the remaining eggs, seeing which might be fertilized (none), and helping the one baby who hadn't made it to the surface--the eggs are buried pretty deep. They put the baby in a bucket to release him after dark. In the daylight, he was too vulnerable to predators. It was sweet, and I got to take pictures so it counts as work, too. Times like that, I love my job.

Screwtape

2010-08-08T14:17:00.001-07:00

I read The Screwtape Letters as a teenager, when I never thought about the devil or evil. Shows how very fortunate I was, and remain. I read it then as entertainment, because I liked the Narnia books and thought letters from a devil was a cool idea.

Now, I'm reading it again after realizing slowly that we really are exposed to bad, or evil, or Satan, or devils, or whatever you want to call it, ALL THE TIME. For serious. Otherwise, why would any of us think so negatively? I'm very lucky in that I have never had anyone tell me I'm fat or ugly or should really give up on dating or that I should be ashamed of myself or any of the wretched wrong things that occasionally enter my mind. So no person has given me those ideas. I certainly did not come up with them on my own. God does not plant them. "The media" and "society" do have some part in it, but I'm not convinced they're powerful enough to make me think such things. So I conclude that someone's out to get me. Thus, Screwtape revisited.

And dang. It is so good. I gave it three stars on Goodreads a couple years ago when I was entering books from the past, but I can already tell you it's going to get five this time around. Here's a sample:

"Humans are amphibians--half spirit and half animal....As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation--the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks."

And that's just leading up to the point! All hail Lewis. More to come.

Last night, I covered the queen's ball for the Sneads Ferry Shrimp Festival. I sat with Mrs. North Carolina and her husband, a delightful couple. The first thing they did was offer me a two-liter of Mountain Dew, saying, "There's no way we can finish this." This was one of those operations where, when you ask for water, they act like no one's ever wanted it before. It's sweet tea and soft drinks all the way. Even at its worst, my job never ceases to entertain me.

Self-indulgence

2010-07-31T09:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I bought Lucky Charms and milk at HT, along with lime beer for my one alcoholic drink per week, and Swiss cheese and Boursin and Chavrie and strawberries and Oats & More, which were all on sale (they always get me with the sales! Or do I get them? Chicken or egg?). I had been craving Lucky Charms for weeks and always denied myself but finally thought, hey, you only live once, and I had had a long day and needed to chill out with my Michael Mahan first-firing-of-new-kiln bowl/crock full of sugary empty calories.

I sat on the porch for the first time in a while and finished a book, then came inside hoping to catch What Not to Wear, but as usual of late, it wasn't on. So I read Real Simple until The Soup came on. It was a perfect night for the sole soul. Real Simple had inspiring three-ingredient recipes. I'm inching toward clarity on some questions about my future and calling. (Inching forward and footing back, it seems sometimes, but on the whole, progress is progress and not to be pooh-poohed.) Now, here I am at PCJ, having fortuitously escaped Saturday assignments, bit by bit working on my pottery articles. Wishing there were a bike lock-esque thing for laptops for when you're in public and want to go to the bathroom and are tired of asking strangers to keep an eye on your computer while you're away. Glorying in the realization that I don't have to go for a run after this if I don't want to. About to get a free refill. Life is good.

The New Busy

2010-07-28T17:23:00.000-07:00

I knocked off work early today for a dental cleaning. After having my teeth and dental hygeine praised, I came home, read a bit, and had plenty of time to run and shower before supper, a rare occasion. Now I'm watching MythBusters and letting it get dark, checking other people's blogs and finishing a Googlechat. Free time is so much dearer now, in every sense of the word. Something to savor.

Can't wait for Seagrove in August. It will be different because I'm not actively (or passively) working on the book, but probably better for that, more carefree. Plus I now have a bit of disposable income to support Potters for Peace.

I'm off to do some information-gathering. More later.

Weekend Update

2010-07-24T13:31:00.001-07:00

Hi there,

I'm sitting at the one wi-fi hotspot in Kenansville, North Carolina, killing time (hours! five hours!) between assignments. They close in thirty minutes and I'll have three hours left after that. Very glad to have found it, though; A&M cafe. I would never have checked it out had not an acquaintance recommended it, because from the outside it looks pretty sketch, but inside it's nice. I'm sitting next to a print of ivory-billed woodpeckers, in a comfortable chair with a table at a great height for typing, looking out the windows at green trees and blue sky.

I just did the questions for chapter 11 in Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World. My small group is reading it and loving it, but there are 12 chapters, so we're almost out. Luckily, the same author, Joanna Weaver, has another book, Having a Mary Spirit, so we're going with that next. But after that we will be back to square one in the Salt Shaker (Christian bookstore), wandering around being indecisive and feeling blind. We've picked some terrible books--we all agree on this, it's not just me and my snobbery--so I tense up as we near that time again. The reason for my saying this is, does anyone have good ideas for books for Christian small groups to read? Even though we have all of Having a Mary Spirit before next time, I would feel good if we had a few titles up our sleeves. Maybe I'll turn them onto Adam Hamilton.

I'm going to see a movie this evening (for work) that was written, produced, and directed by a local 17-year-old. I was dismayed this morning to find out it's a scary movie, because I hate being scared (come on, the world is scary enough already, people) but I'm thinking it might be bad enough to be funny instead. Which puts me in a bind: do I want a sweet lil' earnest teenager to make a good movie if it means I'll be scared on the long drive home? Or do I want his heartfelt work to be low quality just for the sake of my peace of mind? Not too much longer until we know, confreres. Either way it's part bad, part good, in keeping with the pattern of life in general. I'm slowly learning that it's all about the ratios.

A quick post before buckling down

2010-07-22T13:12:00.000-07:00

I sometimes get frantic for NPR talky-talk when it's classical for too long. Did you know that WHQR stands for "Wilmington's High-Quality Radio?" I think Bill Radke and the other Marketplace guy (Ari...?) are my faves, even though I'm close friends with Neil Conan after my stint on Talk of the Nation.

Heat index 106 today. About the same yesterday. Let's hope tomorrow is a bit more tolerable for the U2 cover band! It makes everything about ten times more difficult and me about ten times more irritable. What if I just walked into the ocean fully clothed?

The Life

2010-07-20T13:25:00.000-07:00

Working at home in my pajamas today. I'm about to go for a run after way too long without, and then I'm going to a concert at Topsail Beach and getting paid for it. Sweet!

The Good with the Bad

2010-07-17T15:24:00.000-07:00

I found out yesterday that we sometimes get paid with live checks (just learned that neat and apt term) and sometimes with direct deposit. We never know which until it happens. Peggy said, "It's hit or miss." People shrug this stuff off! I don't think it's OK! Seems like it's asking for someone's check to be missed someday. This workplace gets more Twilight-Zone-y every day.

But I got to watch a search-and-dive team train by retrieving a dummy from a pond, touch a (disembodied) baleen, and interview four magicians for three stories. I'm very lucky in very many ways. I meet the neatest and sweetest people. And readers seem to respond well, which is the whole point.

Plus, I'm awesome at "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me," because I listen to NPR all the time. Fret not, WHQR, I didn't pledge during the drive, but you will get your recompense yet, dear friend. Just you wait.

Enter the mini

2010-07-08T19:31:00.000-07:00

Hiya,

I'm going to try some mini-blogging, like a couple of sentences at a time. I believe it will make me more likely to post regularly rather than lapsing. And of course, once I'm logged on I'll probably spill at least a paragraph or two, so the idea is to trick myself into thinking I'm only writing a bit, which seems so much less daunting than having to deliver some insightful, decisive thing.

Thus:

I found the way to keep lettuce crisp and delish for a week or even more! Rinse (in a bowl if the breed has a lot of sand in it), drain, pat/shake dry, and then put in an airtight container with paper towels to wick away the excess moisture.
Also learned that my bread freezes quite well and thaws just fine in the microwave.

I finished Devil in the White City in a record four days or something. What a thrill! I recommend it to everyone. It's about the Chicago World's Fair in the 1890s and a serial killer who lived in Chicago at that time. As a nonfic writer, I found the notes almost as intriguing as the book. Larson was so thorough and so detailed in his research. Definitely a new role model for me. Now I'm on another book by Erik Larson, Thunderstruck. A bit less ferociously all-consuming but well above other books. This one's about Marconi, the beginning of wireless telegraphy, and also a murder but I don't think it's a serial killer like in the last one. Larson writes history really accessibly because he focuses on people. I want to implore him to write textbooks, or just adapt his existing books slightly for a student audience. I'd devour a history class if it was structured like his books.

That's all. I've an early morning tomorrow. Stay tuned for mini-posts.

A Good Day

2010-07-03T10:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I went to the office to upload my week's articles, then left on assignment. I covered art camp at Art Exposure in Hampstead, a really great place with wonderful people. Then I visited the Sea Salt Bakery, which was recently started by the same people who opened my beloved Sweet 'N' Savory in 1992. Their display trays are made of bread.

I left early because I had an oil-change appointment, and rather than go all the way to Wrightsville Beach for one hour, I decided to sit in Port City Java in the Harris Teeter across the street from the Honda place. I ran into a couple of friends from school, one of whom had just returned from Japan. Also saw some of the familiar faces from Flaming Amy's Bowl. At the Honda place, I ran into another friend from school and had a wonderful long conversation with her while waiting for our cars. She's hilarious and insightful. I was very happy to skip my reading session.

On the way to dinner, I saw someone who used to go to my church, then at the restaurant a couple the wife of which is in the MFA program, then at the concert, two friends from high school. That makes eight people I randomly ran into in one day! I wonder why that always happens in clusters and then not for weeks. But I love when it does. I also finished Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell, a wonderful and surprising and educational and funny book I'm intensely glad to have read, and then started in on Devil in the White City, which it hurt to tear myself away from at 1:30 a.m. to go to sleep. I wish I could read it while working out so I wouldn't have to choose between the two later today. So everything added up to a wonderful, fun day, and here I am on the other side of it still riding the wave and enjoying my first fully unscheduled day in a long time. Let's keep it up, okay?

The state of things

2010-07-03T09:57:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I posted, and for excellent reason, though I say so myself. I have a full-time job now! I'm a newspaper reporter, which is delightful since I actually (gasp!) get to work in my chosen and studied field of writing. Despite the hour-or-so drive to work and the sometimes-several-hours of driving to and from assignments, I very much enjoy the work. Someone asked me the other day what exactly I do. I said, "Well. I decide what is newsworthy. I go to the news. I interview people and take pictures. I write the stories in InDesign and deal with the photos in PhotoShop, and I upload them to a server." It's much more manageable than it sounds, mostly because the crew is quite laid back and gives reporters some hard-core freedom to cover whatever we find interesting, on our own timetable. I'm very lucky to be working in this setting as opposed to a traditional daily paper. Of the four papers owned by the company, three come out once a week and one comes out twice a week. It's a good pace: always enough work, rarely too much for sanity. Also, I love interacting with all the different people I write about: professional magicians, children taking art lessons, librarians, owners of art centers and bakeries, businesspeople, politicians. Even town council meetings are surprisingly eventful and easy to find the story in. I've gotten a lot more comfortable making cold calls on the phone to find out when an event is or some other tidbit of information. We crack ourselves up at the office, and I should soon get a computer with all the right software so I can do some composing at home. NPR/WHQR is my new best friend, with all the driving I do, so I'm always learning something illuminating. It's a sweet deal overall. Since I write so much for work, posts here might become more sparse and will probably include some links to pieces I've written for the papers. But do keep checking, and I will do my utmost not to let this blog lapse.

AWP 7: To Publish or Self-Publish?

2010-05-05T14:14:00.001-07:00

The main guy who talked at this panel was Will Harris.

Self-publishing has a bad name, but if you're an indie filmmaker or musician, that's cool. So think of self-publishing as being an indie publisher.

If you're going to self-publish, you'll probably have some control over the cover. People always judge books by their covers, so be sure to make something great. Here are some things to keep in mind with covers.
1. Distill the book's theme and tone.
2. Be clear, even obvious.
3. Be bold, with no boxed-in tiny images. Let the image fill the field! Type in it, not next to it.
4. Be open to the unexpected.
5. Trust your designers. Don't be married to a specific concept. It's OK to argue with the designer, but if you do, have a reason that's related to the book.

Which leads us to the next list, Working with a Designer.
1. Brief them in one page about the project.
2. Be clear about themes.
3. Show covers you like, but...
4. ...no expectations.
5. Feel first--don't overthink.
6. Don't tell them how to design! You can share ideas, but don't say, "Put a cat in the corner."

Don't use timid type. Put nudity on the cover if possible (subtle nudity, to make sure it stays on shelves).
Pitfalls of design:
weak type
anonymity
too much going on
image or type too small in relation to cover

Pictures or people are very effective--people look at people--but not too specific, just a suggestion. You don't want to nail down how the reader can imagine a certain character.

All the major self-publishers are fine, there are no glaring differences or problems with any. The question is what you are going to do, how you are oging to separate writing from editing and designing.

Find your tribe. There are probably ten million people for each author who already love you, agree with you, and want to be your friend. You have friends, a family, colleagues. List fifty people in real life who really like you. Build from there, and that's your tribe. Also go after your mentors and heroes and say you love them. Most of them will honestly and sincerely relate to you if you do so with them. Concentric circles will grow outward from who's already in your life. All of the platforms (Facebook, etc.) are what you make of them. Make sure the relationships on there are actual ones that will help, not just friends for the sake of having a lot of friends.

The two types of people most preyed on are actors and authors. "They'll buy anything if they think it's magic." Don't be in that group. Think about what you're paying for, what you'll get out of it.

Make sure you get an ISBN and a listing in the Ingram catalog. That's how you get on Amazon and stuff.

Readers don't distinguish between self-published authors and traditional publishing. Virginia Woolf, Joyce, Poe, and a long list of others self-published. If it's good, it'll fly. Yes, a lot of self-published books are bad. The founder of lulu.com said, "We specialize in bad poetry that sells six copies to the friends of the author." But remember there are also a lot of terrible books that were published traditionally. The majority of music is bad, but if you make your own CD, nobody cares that it's not produced by a house.

Think about why you're not publishing traditionally. Are you ignoring feedback? You can overcome the bad-book stigma with self-awareness, confidence, and credibility. Time will also help cure the stigma.

Finally, "Technology doesn't make a good book. You make a good book."

Some of the resources he and others mentioned:
http://www.360digitalbooks.com- printers, will ship anywhere
http://www.iuniverse.com
http://www.lightningsource.com- discount for stores, returnable books, but less simple--you have to have a fully formatted PDF for the whole book and the cover.
http://www.lulu.com
http://www.authorhouse.com, consolidating several sites
http://www.redroom.com

The next post will be about Digital Publishing and cover some of the same ground as this one. See you next time! Thanks for reading.

AWP 6: Chabon and journalism

2010-04-30T12:41:00.000-07:00

Michael Chabon's keynote address was so freakin' good. Here are just a few things I jotted down:
"It may be that all morality rests on our ability to see the likeness in unlike things: I and thou."

"Ideas are the easiest and perhaps the least interesting parts of the job...Ideas are swarming, ubiquitous, chronic. Ideas are a plague....There are five novels in every newspaper, ten in every work of history, one in every unhappy family." Ideas are everywhere--the trick is sticking with them.

"I gave off the moral equivalent of that new car smell."

"the pile of well-typed crap"

Life is not a story, at least not a very good story. Life is just a bunch of middle.

"I got down to the work because the serious and diligent people around me were getting down to theirs."

"If your students are lucky enough to not know everything...."

"challenging each word to defend its presence in the sentence"

"No sentence was so fine that it could not be improved upon the ninth time through."

"I believe that writers ought regularly to read the dictionary" in order to discover the musculoskeletal system, the genome, of our language.

Novelists have two obligations:
1. Bringing the dish. "They bring the news, the gossipy gospel." The author is our friend, showing us the map of a life.
2. Keeping it entertaining. Sometimes using artifice, "all the thrilling sense of deliverance that only a great lie can." Pure autobiography is the last thing we want. When you're vanishing an elephant onstage, you don't tell about the half hour you spent reading up on mirror optics in a chophouse on Wabash Avenue, sitting on a donut cushion for your hemorrhoids.

Chabon did the talk in a Q&A style, asking his own questions and doing voices and impressions of question-askers one might find in an audience, which I thought was pretty genius. He said he'd been very disappointed when he learned we couldn't have a Q&A because the space (a large ballroom) wouldn't allow it. This disappointment again drove home, like almost every panel, the point that writing and reading are all about connecting with other people.

Here are some books Chabon mentioned as having influenced him:
Oakley Hall- Warlock
Jorge Luis Borges- Labyrinths
Edith Wharton- The Age of Innocence
Vladimir Nabokov- "I admire him for Lolita and Pale Fire, but I love him for Pnin."
Love in the Time of Cholera, 100 Years of Solitude
Moby-Dick
Portrait of a Lady

Next, I went to a panel called "It's Not Just About You: Solidifying Journalism's Role in Creative Writing Programs." The panelists were Patrick Walters, Jim Sheeler, Philip Gerard, John Calderazzo, and Rebecca Skloot. Here are my notes.

There's not necessarily any difference between journalism and creative writing. It's important for people who identify as either to learn about and embrace the other.

Reporting is simply defined as looking for facts, about your own life or others'. Reporting makes possible the effects we usually think of as literary--the meaningfulness. "Collect all the dots and connect them." Think of lives not as biographies but as stories. Research is not just looking at a photo; it's wondering what's not in the picture. The best pictures are a gift from the subject to the photographer, and it's the same way when you write about people. They're giving you a gift.

When you raise big problems and issues, you have to put them in context, try to turn it toward resolution. Writing about others forces you to observe and imagine what it's like to be someone who's not you. You take on a huge responsibility to be true to their story. The msot important thing you can say is "I don't know." Don't trust memory, no matter how sure it seems.

When Rebecca Skloot wrote The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (for ten years!), she fact-checked absolutely everything. Even dialogue! When you show that you're trying to get everything right, people will give you a lot. They will help you.

Learn about research methods used by anthropologists and oral historians. Make the writers you read show how they know what they know.

Storytelling isn't going anywhere. People want to read stories, not strands of fact.

Here are some resources they mentioned:
Norman Sims, ed.- The Literary Journalists: the New Art of Personal Reportage
Norman Sims and Mark Kramer, ed.- Literary Journalism
Mark Kramer and Wendy Call, ed.- Telling True Stories
James B. Stewart- Follow the Story: How to Write Successful Nonfiction
At http://www.newsu.org/courses, you can find tons of free tutorials, self-directed courses, webinars, broadcasts, and other resources designed by successful journalists to help you learn some of the skills. It's part of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Sounds legit.

In non-AWP news, I'm still waiting to hear about a few jobs that seem promising, and I have an interview on Tuesday to work as a typesetter! Typesetting is by far my favorite part of the publishing practicum. The woman I talked to on the phone said the interview will be more practical, not just talking. They'll actually give me some text and say, "Make a wedding invitation," or, "Make a business card." Very different from typesetting in a book interior, but using many of the same skills and techniques. The job is in a rural area about an hour away from where I am now, which means it would be a hassle in some ways. But my dad commutes about an hour each way, and it's worked for him for years. If I get the job, I'll just get me some books on CD or awesome podcasts (once I get a pod) and learn my way to work. And we never know whom else I'm going to hear from. There's no telling how God is going to work in my life in the next few weeks as we iron all of this out. I'll keep you posted!

Next up: To Publish or Self-Publish?

AWP 5: The Limit—or Light—of Spiritual Belief: Across Genres.

2010-04-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

Hi all, thanks for being patient as I put off blogging in favor of other pursuits.

This panel included Emily Louise Zimbrick, Scott Cairns, Janet Peery, Nicole Mazzarella, Farideh Goldin, and Josh Allen.

When we encounter inconsistences in scripture and religion, we can ignore them, discard them as irrelevant, or acknowledge and study the complexities. If they're in God's word, maybe God wants us to consider these things, difficult questions, moral complexity. Real faith confronts the trouble and the troubling head-on. Bad literature, religious or not, avoids it. Dickinson wrote, "On subjects of which we know nothing, we both believe and disbelieve a hundred times an hour, which keeps believing nimble."

Scott Cairns started by talking about the ressourcement movement, a French Catholic movement to recover patristic wisdom that had been excised from writings. He used the phrase "squandering tradition" to describe what the people were doing when they originally cut out parts of those religious writings. Cairns introduced (to me) the terms cataphatic, for a theology of attributes in which we say things about God as if he were a person and we knew him, and apophatic, the via negativa, the theology of unsaying and the way of unknowing, in which we think and speak of God in terms of what he is not. The two traditions usually balance each other out. For example, many people think of God as a king, but acknowledge that he is not king in the way we normally think of human kings. Cairns talked about Gregory of Nyssa (or someone else) meeting God in light, then in cloud, then in darkness. He said poetry is not a matter of waying what we think or want readers to think, or redacting experience, but an experience of trusting language and the words on the page. "If I only wrote what I know, I wouldn't have ever made tenure. So what I do is write in order to know."

Josh Allen talked about his fiction in which a husband notices his wife coming home later than usual from work and finds that she is stopping at a Mormon church to pray. He discussed the importance of multiple valid points of view and quoted John Garder, who, in On Moral Fiction, said "True art is too complex to reflect the party line." Allen quoted someone else who said, "We have to safely leave evangelism to the evangelist....Art transcends its boundaries by staying within them."

To an extent, all literature is about a spiritual journey.
Examine truth without examining dogma.
A happy ending, like any ending, has to be earned. The character has to make choices to resolve the story, not just feel despair and go up on the roof and have a transcendent experience. It must stem from choices the characters have made, not grace we don't understand. Offering readers only one emotional response means the piece will tend toward sentimentality.

Things they mentioned in the panel:
Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm
David Kurzon, ed., Modern Poems on the Bible
The Classic Midrash from Paulist Press
E. M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel talks about the difference between preaching and prophecy. Music critic and writer Greil Marcus, talking about Van Morrison on NPR, says that Van Morrison breaks through his own defenses and thus breaks through his listeners'.

Thanks for reading! The next post will be about the keynote address by Michael Chabon and, possibly in the same post, a panel on journalism and CNF. Good stuff.

In other news, I've just taught my last class, and had my last class as a student last week. It's a very weird feeling, like I'm losing part of who I am. Only part, though, and I can be a student of life whatever my career turns out to be.

I set the inside of my oven on fire the other night. I preheated the oven to make sweet potato fries, and the bottom of the oven had some butter-and-sugar residue from pecan rolls which had overflowed a little (or perhaps more than I thought). Funnily, I was more upset about not being able to bake the sweet potato fries than I was about the actual presence of a small fire in my house. Go figure. I've bought a new drip pan and am now about to install it and retry those fries. Nothing if not adventurous, this life.

AWP 4: "What's Your Platform? What Agents & Editors Are Looking For in Writers

2010-04-19T14:09:00.000-07:00

This panel was more Q&A than planned little speeches. I'll mimic the structure by introducing everyone and then diving into what they said.

Christina Katz- This panel is about how to be an empowered artist. We're all responsible for our careers, not just putting them in the hands of agents or publicists. Becoming visible, getting known.

Robin Mizell, literary agent.
Venn diagram--one group that has studied craft and is talented, one group that has studied how to promote and sell. The sweet spot where they intersect could be "larger and more dangerous." We can cross-pollinate. Jane Friedman says the challenge is writers who are very talented but don't have a mindset for the business.

David Sanders- Ohio University Press and Swallow Press.
Connection between how much of a presence a writer has in the world and how they succeed.

Jane Friedman, Publisher and Editorial Director of Writer's Digest.

Sage Cohen, founder of Sage Communications. Not sure she was actually at the panel--I rarely take notes on who said what--but her sites are cool, so here they are.

When creating your platform, think about what else you do besides writing. How are you going to become visible and rise above the crowd? Our job as writers is to stand out. It can be fun and exhilarating and creative. When you think your writing career is fun and exciting and interesting, it will become that way to others and draw people. Your platform is not your CV. It's an ongoing effort to connect with your readers and others who want to know about you and what you're doing. It takes years of work--it's never too soon to start. It's a journey, a lifelong process, part of your growth as a writer with a career.

Your platform includes:
1. The authority or credentials you bring to the table. It's a presence. Ezra Pound had the best platform of the 20th century.
2. Visibility. Antyhing that was available, Pound would exploit it, advertise his cause (not himself). This is your life. Get your friends to tell you the truth, not stroke your ego.

That was the opening remarks. Here begins the panel discussion proper.
Question 1: How can writers build a platform and gain visibility? It's not what you did, it's what you do and what you're going to do.

Answers:
Build!:
websites,
blogs,
e-zines,
e-classes,
real classes.

Write.
Get published,
give talks,
readings,
workshops,
keynotes,
panels.
Host or organize author visits and reading series.
Coaching, training. (These are all things Christina Katz does.)

Facebook,
Twitter,
LinkedIn,
YouTube.
HARO- Help A Reporter Out- requests for experts, you can answer and get media coverage. Vlogging.
del.icio.us or delicious.com, social bookmarking.
Embrace all the opportunities that exist to help writers become authors. You already have a network in the real world. Guest blogging opportunities, interviews, reviews. You should say yes to anything you're invited to until you're so overbooked that you can afford someone to say no for you.
Create an online presence. It makes you discoverable 24/7, even when you're asleep or unavailable.
Brian Solis has a graphic called The Conversation Prism that shows all of the possibilities for online connectivity, all the different sites. There's a version 2.0 but I'm linking to the older one because 2.0 made my computer not only say "error on site" but make an unprecedented beeping noise.
With all this online stuff, you don't have to be where everyone else is--don't join a site just because other authors are. You can choose what's comfortable for you and what makes sense in relation to your intended audience.
The BBC has a list of the top 100 websites, in a graphic showing proportional traffic. (Just rollover the blocks to see what they are.) You can't spread yourself among all the networks. Once you're inactive on a site, it's not effective. (my addition: probably less effective than not being on it in the first place.) You make a long to-do list and do just a little of it each day. Use what fits not just you but your audience. Where they work, live, where they go, use the tools they are using. Twitter is very effective for writers. People spend more time on Facebook than on Google! Your platform often builds with what and who you already know, where you already are. Reinforce the personal aspect of it. Extend the reach. Communicating and connecting are why we read and write. Being a big fish in a small pond is good. Oprah took away from us the idea of baby steps--we now think we can just write a really good book and then suddenly be famous. She made us think we can put all of our energy into the book and all we have to to is go on Oprah. But our career is 100% our responsibility, even if we land our dream deal with our dream publisher. Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Dorothy Parker all had really messed up relationships with their publishers--they were parent figures in a way, or saviors who were supposed to deliver them. We don't want that! We're going to deliver ourselves.

Question 2: What are the challenges in building platforms for writers?

Answers:
1.Time. The most important thing you have to do is write. But you can't write 50 hours a week unless you're Balzac. You're the expert! Be the expert! Let the world know what you know. If you're not writing nonfiction, write about the process, write about writing, learn what the tools are. That requires some time-budgeting to pay attention to what's happening and your contribution, to further your career. For a writer, your career is something that you don't put down.
2. Getting comfortable with technology and tools. Get comfortable with slow growth--don't ask someone to review your book the minute they friend you. It may feel at first like no one's paying attention. You have to move through the feeling of meaninglessness--give it time to develop, just like any other relationship, to grow before you ask for huge favors.
3. Overcoming the attitude that self-promotion is vulgar or an admission that you're not talented. Remain other-focused. Chris Brogan's book Trust Agents embraces being present in other communities and focused on them for a long time before you even mention your writing or projects. Comment on other people's sites. Attitude is the most important thing. A bad one is the biggest obstacle. Also, clarify who you are, what you do, why you matter, why you're relevant, from the standpoint of common ground with others, through their eyes.
4. Confusing platform development with socializing. Not zooming in on what you can offer.
5. Thinking too much about yourself and not enough about others.
6. Not having a plan. Hope is not a method. Being overconfident, thinking you have more of a platform than you do.
7. Burnout.

Find three role models who are not necessarily largely famous, but whose techniques have brought them success. Quality resources are key. Quiet time thinking about your platform will help. Libel, copyright infringement, privacy violations, and similar issues will get you automatic rejections from publishers.

Well, that's a sweet note to end on. Sorry these notes are quite scattered--I didn't realize blogger wouldn't let me cut and paste, so I couldn't re-order some of the info. Next up: Spirituality and Writing! Woo hoo! Quite a departure from the nitty-gritty practical panels of the first morning.

Does anyone know how to email or otherwise send a comment to the postsecret blog? I have some mind to speak.

AWP 3: Squad 365 Continued

2010-04-17T08:27:00.000-07:00

These notes are from the Q&A session following the Shameless Self-promotion panel.

Reading groups are often affiliated with local bookstores. Create a list of book club questions. There's a site, http://www.readinggroupchoices.com, where you can get your publisher to submit your book to it and then book clubs will see it.

Can you make your effort less time-consuming? Can you make it something that feeds your spirit? Find FUN ways to drive traffic to your blog, like Twitter.

Propose yourself as a writer/reader for reading series. Write to them nine months or so in advance of your publication date. Leave the crumbs through the forest--it might seem weird to take the initiative and invite yourself over, but they can't invite you if they don't know you.

My idea: have a petition for people to sign who want your book published.

Think of how you can be of service to your potential readers.

Pre-publication blog: countdown, contests, interactive stuff--make the publication a highly anticipated event. Don't post excerpts before selling the book because they may change a lot!

Make sure you editor/publicist knows some of the places that are personal to you where he should send press releases, places that wouldn't be on his normal list--your hometown paper, other places you've lived, places your family lives.

Before publication, don't tell too much of the story because then reporters and other media folks won't have anything new to tell. OR, the more you tell and share and offer, the more readers you'll get. Two schools of thought.

You learn from everything. At the very least, you learn what interests you, and a writer gets to use everything.

#1 way to get your book known: get in trouble.

Make promises you don't know if you can keep. Make mistakes. Be game all of the time. Have real conversations--people are more likely to read or buy it if they've spoken with you. Promotion is human connection, not entry into a great national machine called publicity. It is rendering service. When you render service, the ego's out of it and the fear's out of it. Big global plan. A little promotion each day (writing a fan letter counts!) Micromovements.

Sit down with a librarian to talk about how to promote your books to librarians. They might invite you back for a reading. Librarians will know about book clubs. Stores will send employees to readings with a portable credit card machine and books to sell. Mail copies with letters to your literary heroes. Or to your peers, equals. That's where collaboration might happen--collaborate with established artists in other media, and their platform can market you. Nonfiction and other writers have expertise. We are authorities about things. That's a platform too. Market with what you know, apart from the book as a product.

Here are some things they mentioned:
http://www.booksense.com
Drive by Daniel Pink
The Gift by Lewis Hyde
http://tribalauthor.com. They said the blog section of this site includes a post that helps you figure out Twitter.
http://www.4over4.com lets you print your own business cards, stationery, etc.

That's it for the Squad 365 panel, the first and perhaps best one I went to this year. Stay tuned for more AWP rehashing as I try to stretch the love out a little bit longer.