Wasted

So, about an hour ago, I remembered with annoyance that the only things of consequence that I've written on this blog all semester have been about John Eldredge. This is not proper. I thought musingly of writing something decent for your starved spirits, but then was attacked and sucked in by the daimones of Facebook, and now, an hour later, I have accomplished nothing. Then it took me like 15 more minutes to sign in because it's been so long that I've forgotten my username and password to get in here.

But, there is now no time to chat because I have promised myself in the most graphic terms that if I do not organize my notes for this paper before dinner, I will be flayed alive. I suppose the Facebook daimones would have to do it...

With greater than usual self-disgust,
S.

Query

Is there anything more beautiful in the world than full moonlight on fresh snow?

*sigh*

A Jot

So, I do still have thoughts about good old WAH. Actually, it's a thought, a final little thought, and unlike Eldredge I will put it in terms of my personal experience rather than that of all women in all places and all times forever (modernist!). One of my favorite lines from this book is, "You'd have to admit that a Christian woman is...tired." I relate to this so much, in fact it's probably what I related to most in the entire book, in speaking not just of Christian women but of many women's experience. But for me, the reason behind it is this: I am really, really stupid when it comes to letting anyone help me with anything ever. A lot of times I find myself carrying a lot of burdens (in terms of workload, chores, busyness, whatever) but I would never dream of sharing this with someone and asking for help. I either think, Oh, I can handle this on my own, or I somehow expect the other people around me to know that I need this kind of help (the latter I find most infuriating). Then I get a bee in my butt because I'm supposedly handling so much and no one is stepping up to help me or even really taking notice. Clearly, if the people surrounding me were truly caring and supportive, their telepathy would kick in to circumvent this. So I get a chip in my shoulder and take up even more of the burden to justify my new position as martyr: "Well, fine, I guess I'll just handle this too since nobody else seems to be willing to do anything. Not that they would do it as well as I would anyway. I guess I just have to do everything around here. That's fine, that's the way it always ends up, isn't it? In the end, you're alone, just you against the world. Well, fine, I don't need anybody anyway."

In terms of general competancies, I feel like I've proven myself pretty well. I know that I know how to mow the lawn, hang a picture, fix the toilet, check the oil in my car, teach someone how to ride a bike, fix most problems with an average printer, and even how to build a fire without starter fluid and how to build a shelter in the woods out of found materials. (Yeah girl scouts!) So I feel like there is no doubt that I am able to do these things. So I guess my hope is that I would not be threatened if someone (man or woman) were to offer to do them for me? Sometimes, like most humans, I want to be big and strong and save the day and do the thing and show that I've got what it takes; and sometimes, like most humans, I just want someone else who's willing to take care of me. If I could let them. We'll see.

So my conclusion is that yes, women are tired, and I would chalk some of that up to the passivity of men and I applaud old John boy for encouraging them to take initiative and be actively looking for ways to help others, but I would also say that people like me, particularly women like me, need to learn to be able to ask for help.

Phew, that it is, I promise. (I think.) Seriously, I am so tired of talking and writing and thinking about this book. But, wait, now people might actually start reading these posts and want to object to what I've said and then I'll have to defend it and we'll have to discuss...crap. Oh well. But at least you, oh internet universe, will not have to put up with more typings on this subject matter from me. Unless somebody makes some really good point and I need to clarify my position. Or if somebody makes a really bad point and I want to anonymously make fun of them. Or if I just feel like it. So don't think of it as a promise, think of it as a highly conditional statement that makes no guarantees about future events.

But, before I close the door on Wild at Heart, I thought some of you might like a fair, enlightened evaluation of the book and its effects from someone who was not me, so I have provided you with a link below to a helpful and informative article from "a good source for Christian news." Enjoy, my little scallops... :-)

http://larknews.com/february_2005/secondary.php?page=3

Yours captivatingly,
S.

Deeper into the Wild

The next installment in a continuing saga...shorter too, I think.

I think one of the biggest…not problems, but questions that I had about this book is why this whole idea about adventure and fairy tales and rescues should be what determines our standards for men and women. Where do these ideals come from? I don’t think of fairy tales as the archetypes of humanity, but rather the inventions of a time very close to ours that romanticizes the way that things used to be. I don’t know that there was ever a time when gallant men rode around on horses rescuing beautiful women. We romanticize old battles, the idea of chivalry, but we don’t have any idea of what these things actually used to be like. So I would agree that these stories have a powerful influence in our culture (after all, I am a writing major, and far be it from me to belittle the power of narrative) but I feel that these stories are not based in any kind of historical truth, that there’s no way we can return to this kind of lifestyle because there is no “there” to return to.

I would agree that in the past men had a more clearly defined role, perhaps even a more active role in some sense, but I don’t think it was a more adventurous role by any means. I think for the greater part of history, the mass of men and women have lived very mundane lives, caught up in mundane tasks of day to day labor, family and finances. So why should we pursue these kind of ideals when they are not based in or really functional in our actual lives? Why do we have these desires in the first place? I don’t think their burnished on every man and woman’s heart, spanning time and place. I think they have far more to do with Western culture than with God or our original design, so perhaps E. is right when speaking to how we ought to deal with them, but I really have to question his assessment of their source. But this is also part of a more general, nitpicky kind of problem that I had with E’s language throughout the book. He speaks so generally and so certainly about how this is always true for every man and woman, and after a while, this overbearing confidence gets really obnoxious, like “Hey buddy, have you asked every single man or woman whether this is the case?” But maybe that’s just me…

The other thing that I found really…interesting is E’s out of hand dismissal of how much gender roles are shaped by society and how much they are biological. To quote his book: “Permit me to bypass the entire nature vs. nurture ‘is gender really built in?’ debate with one simple observation: Men and women are made in the image of God as men or as women…Gender simply must be at the level of the soul, in the deep and everlasting places within us.” Is it just me, or are there about four million unexamined presuppositions in that “one simple observation?” It seems as though Eldredge would deny that there is any difference in genders that is derived sociologically rather than spiritually. I really have a problem with that. I think in recent years there has been so much debate about all of these and so many pushes towards thinking that a lot of gender is sociological that it is in a way popular or cool to declare that one thinks that there are really no integral differences between the genders beyond the physical. And because of that popularity, I would feel a lot more comfortable saying that I think that gender is basically a construction, but I don’t want to do that just to be in conformity to popular notions.

On the other hand, I am really not comfortable with making an assertion like “women tend to be nurturing, while men tend to be aggressive.” (this just as an example of the other camp, not exactly of what E. is saying). So I am really not sure where I fall in the whole nature vs. nurture debate, but I feel like it’s pretty evasive and unfair to just avoid the entire thing, to dismiss it even, particularly if you then go on to make lots of statements about the way that every man or every woman is or what they want, just seems to set you square on some very shaky ideological ground. I think that there are definitely patterns in gender roles, that men tend to be one way or women tend to be one way, but I just don’t think it ever makes demographical sense to start talking about the way that all people are. I also think that there are differences between men and woman that are deeper than merely physical, but I don’t know that I would be comfortable to start pointing out exactly what differences those are, even among my own social group, let alone for all men and women. I think that E. needs to avail himself of what my A.P. American History teacher called “the merits of ‘many’.”

I also have trouble saying that men ought to acquiesce to, or even actively pursue living the way that their natural, “God-given” inclinations would lead them. I have lots of natural inclinations that I am pretty sure that I should just leave alone. For example, I am naturally inclined to be greedy, I am naturally inclined to put other people down so I can get ahead, I am naturally inclined to be neurotic. I don’t think that being naturally inclined towards something necessarily disqualifies something as a guidepost towards how we were meant to live, but I certainly don’t think that that alone would merit some inclination to be declared God-given and noble.

Are you'ns tired of this already? Because believe it or not, I think I have enough thoughts for one more post. So children, which would you rather have, a great lapse in posting or vacuous posts or an inundation of legnthy and semi-thoughtful work? You buttered your bread...

S.

Oh So Wild

Brace yourselves for a very long post...the first thing that I have for you tonight is another installment on the continuing saga of Me and My Wallet. So, I returned the call to the good folks at Chipotle and asked that my wallet be sent to my school address because I figured whatever shipping mode they employed would be too slow to get it back to me by the time I left for school. But my mom really didn't want to go to the DMV to secure a new driver's license for me to use to get on the plane back to school, so she called them, asked if the wallet still had my driver's license (it did) and asked that they ship it to Houston when she found that they were planning to overnight it. So all that Saturday, we sat about the house, waiting for the wallet to show up, which it never did. So I had to go through the complex process of using alternate forms of ID at the airport, and I still have no wallet, since we had to wait until it got to Houston and then have my mom ship it to me at school! I will be glad as a turnip to have that thing back though, come to find it comes in mighty handy.

So, at long, long last, this post is the first in a series of reflections I am writing about Wild at Heart. The series thing is simply because I have too gosh darn much to say, so I thought I would make it a little easier by breaking it down. And hence, installment one:

“Every man was once a boy. And every little boy has dreams, big dreams: dreams of being the hero, of beating the bad guys, of doing daring feats and rescuing the damsel in distress.” Or so sayeth John Eldredge, recently acclaimed for his book Wild at Heart. For those of you who don’t run with the evangelical crowd, this book is a runaway bestseller in Christian bookstores across the nation; a book which attempts to address the deepest desires of a man’s heart, the very core of masculinity. I think those of you who read this blog know that I was attempting to delve into this book simply because it is such a phenomenon in evangelicalism, and if everybody is talking about something, I have a yen to know what it is and why. Furthermore, my friends and I argue about or at least jokingly reference this book pretty consistently, and as someone has astutely pointed out to me, it’s not such a good idea to do this with a book you haven’t read. Fair enough. Furthermore, I have a personal interest in this whole idea of gender roles and what they are and what they mean and how we live them out. So, for all of these reasons, I set myself to the task of digging into this most excellent book to try to discern what this kooky guy is trying to say.

Now, right away I came up against an interesting problem: I am not a man. Shocking, I know, but definitely kind of sticky when I am reading a book by a man, for a man, about men’s issues. Again and again I come up against my own ignorance: these are my perceptions, these are things that I’ve observed as I look at and talk to men. So many times I find myself looking at one of Eldredge’s observations and thinking, “Well, this is what I think about it, but I don’t really know” or “This is also true for me, but perhaps for a man they feel this or think this in some elevated or intense way?” So I guess I just want to state from the beginning that I acknowledge my own ignorance and the limitedness of my experience. And I welcome feedback, especially from guys, as to whether or not the things I am saying, or the things that Eldredge says are true. Because, at least I like to idealistically think, I really want to know what is “true” here, not just hear myself talk.

Okay, with all of the preliminaries out of the way, here we go…

This may sound ridiculously basic, but I think E. really has his finger on something just by pointing out that there seems to be a problem with American men. What kind of problem? I could point out the incredible statistics about absentee fathers and husbands or violent crime, or I could just point out about four gazillion couch potatoes, workaholics, road ragers, or weekend fishermen that seem to characterize the American male. I do not in any way agree with E’s allegation that the women’s movement has in some way demanded the feminization of men, but I think that it has introduced an extremely strong element of confusion into what it means to be a man today. If the message to girls is “You can be anything you want to be,” I think the message to guys has, through silence, turned into “We don’t know what the heck you’re going to be.” In the light of the old elephant in the room syndrome, just to stand up and say, “Hey, this isn’t right!” is the first step that must be taken before anything can be done. And I guess you could say that there’s no problem with anomie, that this allows everyone the freedom to choose whatever they want to be, but I think that anyone, in light of this lack of clear leadership, would just slump passively into…whatever. People don’t have freedom to choose when there are no clear options.

Another of the elements of E’s argument is the idea that all men desire an adventure to participate in, something to challenge them. But at the same time, they resist entering into this adventure because their deepest fear is that they will be proved inadequate, that they will be shown to not be enough for their calling. This is an interesting argument because I think I would say that there are many people, both men and women, who desire to do something larger, particularly in the domestic suburban setting, in a dead-end job that they hate, with a home life that is tense and too busy. And I think that this whole idea of impostership is really endemic to most Westerners, that they have a fear that they will someday be unmasked, that their achievements will be proved fraudulent. So I guess this would be one area where I felt really inadequate to evaluate whether this is simply a human desire, since it seems obvious to me that anyone would want to ride bareback on a beach rather than stare at the gray walls of their cubicle for one more day. But I said to myself, maybe this is something that men want particularly strongly, stronger than women could possibly dream, not being men themselves. So I guess I will leave you to arbitrate whether or not E. was right on this point.

I think that E. may have his finger on something with this whole idea of adventure, but I also think he seems to have presented adventure as an alternative to responsibility, or more particularly duty. He seems to have an idea that duty or moral responsibility is something that men are saddled with, or that the church treats these things as the chief end of man, to borrow from the catechism when really it is to follow these deep desires in their hearts to run off and be William Wallace. I am personally of the opinion that fulfilling his duty, living according to his obligations and sticking to his word are some of the most important things that a man can do. A word that I found conspicuously absent from E’s book is the word “honor,” an omission I found puzzling, since I would rank it extremely high in a list of “things a man ought to be.” Maybe the word is too obscure to be of much use to contemporary men, but to me it seems to be a fairly essential idea to me, one that is eschewed in favor of the pursuit of one’s adventures and dreams. To me this seems like it could easily be used as license, not to become men, but to remain as boys, preoccupied with doing what makes them excited or happy rather than what they see around them that needs to be done, that needs to be taken care of.

But, in my continuing effort to be fair and balanced, I think the other thing in E’s book that is really useful is his urging that men be able to acknowledge their own woundedness. I think it has been a great injustice to men that they have been taught that in order to be men they need to just “suck it up,” deny or forget or ignore whatever has bothered or truly hurt them in favor of being seen as a tough or macho man. I feel that this is not good for anyone, that to suppress feeling of pain turns them into anger or withdrawal. Why is it that uncontrolled rage is not condemned as unmanly when so many other displays of emotion are? This is important too because I think that in order to overcome woundedness, the wound must be acknowledged and dealt with or no growth will come of it; it will become not just a scar, but a burden. I think it takes infinitely more courage to acknowledge one’s wounds and deal with them than to just stuff them and move on, so I do applaud E. for encouraging men to move forward in this area.

Okay, okay, enough all ready! Until next time, my wild little friends...

S.

"Is this a kissing book?"

So chums, as you might have guessed I am lounging in the comfort of my humble abode, watching good old Princess Bride. I miss all of you because I am watching it alone and...no one gets me. Except my friends. Oh, teen angst. I love this movie a great deal. Why am I able to watch it again and again, and still love it just as much each time? Eldridge would say that it is because it captures the true deep desires of my heart which I long to enact in the realm of actual life. I am not so sure.

Gasp, is she finally going to talk about Wild at Heart tonight? No, no, it would be cute to write about it while watching a movie like Princess Bride, but I am too unfocused and it is a bit too late to embark on this epic post. The reason that I am posting is to tell you that *more gasping* Chipotle called today to say that they have my wallet! Oh happy day! I wonder if my moneys are still in there? If they aren't I guess we'll know that those Chipotle employees are up to no good. So, now the question has become, how on earth, where on earth did they manage to find the wallet?

Another question which has long plagued me, why does Buttercup leave Wesley outside the Fire Swamp?

A Puzzling Whodunit

I have been mostably sick all day. I am much confused as to the cause. Maybe it's that darned egg-nog rearing its ugly head again. I thought originally it was the combined effect of my dad's cats and Hope's family's cats causing my allergies to act up and what not. Scratchy throat, sneezing, coughing, that kind of thing was all it was at first, for a couple of days. All seems innocuously cat related, doesn't it. But then, the day that we were leaving, I started to feel worse, stuffy nose, dizzy, achy and the like, which has continued all day today. So I generally acted like a lump and layed around and watched stupid sitcoms on TV and took an obscenely long nap. This is all very funny because mostly I am just telling myself that it's all psychosomatic and if I would just get up and get going, I would be fine. But then I go off and sleep for many hours, is this proof of some actual ailment?

So, I just got back last night from our trip to Omaha which was pretty crazy. I was supposed to spend one night and an afternoon with my friends, but the night that I was staying over at Hope's house, the driving rain changed into driving snow which lasted into the next day. The roads were too bad for me to get back to my Dad's house across town for New Year's Eve so I was with my friends for an extra night for a marathon knock-down-drag-out-down-and-dirty game of Apples to Apples (and I am oh so proud to report that yours truly emerged victorious from the fray). Those of you from Western New York might not think this unusual at all, but it doesn't really happen in Omaha all that often that there is so much snow that you can't get around, so that was interesting. Eddius had a hotel room because he's allergic to cats (like yours truly) and so me, Hope, Francis, and Eddius crashed there for New Year's Eve.

We wanted a little bite to eat so we headed on over to the old Chipotle for some chow. So there I was, I just ordered a drink, I took out my wallet, paid with a 20 cause that's all I had, put the change back and then suddenly, by the end of the evening, the wallet was gone. Let me clarify: my wallet is at least an inch thick, the restaurant was so small that we could see basically the entire place from where we sat. Only a few people came in after us. I was certain that I had the wallet when I went in and certain that I did not have it when I came out. We duly interrogated all the Chipotle employees, but they insisted that they had not seen hide nor hair of my wallet. So where the heck did it go? I had thought it was with me in my purse the whole time, which was only an hour or so, I wasn't bumped into by any dubious strangers, there was no opportunity at which the stupid thing could have been taken, so I really don't know what happened. My charismatic upbringing leads me to believe that dark spiritual forces have interfered with my financial well-being by snatching the wallet. But I don't buy it. I just cannot for the life of me figure out what happened. I canceled my check card so the greatest loss I suffered was forty bucks and all of my Australian money, which is the loss that I am most upset about, except for the loss of the wallet itself which was real leather and cute. So this was the most bizarre, non-serendipitous thing which happened the entire trip. And that, dear friends, is the only story you're going to hear tonight.

Mazel Tov,
S.

Bullets

So, I am a wee bit annoyed right now because I came out here dead tired and all I wanted to do was pen a quick e-mail to a friend and hit the sack. Then my e-mail jigger was like "No way, girl, I'm too full to send your e-mail." So I spent about 45 minutes going through every folder trying to ferret out anything with anything that even resembled an attachment, and it still wouldn't work until *lightbulb* I remembered the junk e-mail folder, which had about 80 messages, all from carnival cruises. (For those of you who are veterans of my blog, you'll recall the summer's posts on how I feel about cruising in the first place)I don't know if that just tipped it over the edge, or if that was the source, but after that, no more problems.

I am at home now. I feel like everything is messy, and it makes me think of Maggie as I find that I too cannot exist freely in cluttered spaces.

Stonework Issue 3, our brain child is finally up. There are no biographies and I feel like it is on hold because of me. I have not sent mine in b/c I'm supposed to include a picture, and I can't get the internet to work to send the picture off of my computer. So I feel like a heel for gumming up the process.

I wish I was in Mexico drinking horchata in the shade in a plaza.

I have had two chances to send my work places to be considered for publication. The deadline is Dec. 31 and I will not be sending anything for either. Farewell, fame and fortune. I can't pull things off. I pray to God that I will not end up screwing up this Africa thing too. ("Help me, help me, help me, help me...")

I hope all of my Christmas presents make it to their intended destination in time. Fortunately, Christmas happens like 4 times for me, so that eases the strain.

If I was a truly great artist, I would come to a blank page half dead with fatigue and bleeding from the liver and in the midst of being chased by a swarm of killer bees, and still compose the beautiful and heartrending words. Alas. I have this vague notion that I came on here with a number of different things I was thinking of writing about. I don't remember what any of them were.

Goodnight, compadres. The next post ought to be a happy one, or at least thoughtful. Maybe we can yet pull it off.

S.

Insecurity

Tonight, I was at a Christmas party. It was a very lovely party, I borrowed a very beautiful dress from a friend and long, beaded earrings that jingle against my neck. A bunch of my friends were there and I enjoyed mixing and mingling with all of these people that are so obviously dear and wonderful, to see them decked out in their Christmas finery and admire them. It was good to talk and to joke and to eat tasty food.

And yet, at the end, I am left melancholy.

Parties for me are like getting drunk is for some people. You have a great time while it's happening, but afterwards you don't feel so hot. Because no matter how many people I talk to, how many compliments I get, no matter how much I potentially shine, I still feel that it was never enough. I, in fact, was not enough.

Don't you ever wonder if people really like you, or if everybody is just pretending and being nice so that Jesus will give them extra sprinkles on their cupcakes in heaven? Sure, people can say all the right things and act as if they want you around, but in the end, you can't do any more than guess about the authenticity of their love, the inscrutability of their guise. What if the world around you is full of great pretenders?

Because, in the end, you know yourself to well to believe that you are in fact the life of the party, or even a moderately acceptable wallflower. You are not funny enough, interesting enough, pretty enough, smart enough, witty enough, kind enough, thoughtful enough, generous enough, brave enough, empathetic enough, patient enough, wise enough, tactful enough...you're just not enough. People have brought their sandwiches and you aren't cutting the mustard. And everyone can see. And they hate you for your insufficiency.

They hate you because you are garish in the midst of the gaity, because you are awkward among the suave. You stick out like a sore thumb for your failed jokes and inability to make conversation. You are gangly like a puppet with twisted strings.

The hypotheticals go on for days. What if they talk badly about me behind my back? What if they're only my friend because of so-and-so? What if they totally disagree with what I've just said, but are too disgusted with my ignorance to say anything? What if they're just waiting for me to leave so they can have a good conversation, a good time? All of these questions blow away in the first passing breeze because the answers are just not available to us. More questions come and replace them, and the answers? We can't know. Does it even matter? I don't know about the cosmic sense, but it matters to me.

I want to be liked. I want to be cool, to be the life of the party, the one everyone wants to talk to. That's not so different from you, I think. And so, knowing that this is what is common to our human condition, I will give myself grace. I will wait until I can grow stronger; I will pour nourishment onto the out-branching roots I put into the soil of myself. I will drink in sun and water and wait for the day when I am strong to say "I am enough."

baby! baby! baby!

I would like to announce to anyone who cares to listen that little Gladiola Hope Huth came into the world at 11:30 on Tuesday night, at 7 lbs, 13 oz. I know, I know; Gladiola? I'm still not sure what I think of the name. Mari has plans to call her Lola, I think that's much nicer than Gladdy. In case I didn't mention it in a previous post, Dave and Lori work at the college as profs, but they have also gone to church with me for the past 2 years, so I feel rather invested in this baby. Pics below (I think the one of the baby with her two beaming parents is one of the most amazing, beautiful things I've seen in a very long time.

I recant...

but only because I want people to like me and think my blog is cool, (obviously more important goals that speaking with uncensored honesty) which at this rate is not the net effect of my publishing efforts. But I have decided to give you one of the poems I've been working on as part of my senior project (but remember that this is still only a first draft). Think of it as a propitiating offering and don't leave nasty comments.

Your wistful girl,
S.

Finding the Geraniums, Gone

With the winter coming on,
I guess they felt they had to do it.
But now the neatly landscaped
plots of geraniums have been
decimated. Each plant
has left a pothole, a crater
in the world of wood chips,
a conspicuous absence of form
and flower.

And I wonder who did it,
who decided that trowel and
shovel and wheelbarrow should
do the work that a jealous frost
had set aside or was just
saving for later?

It must have been a dirty job.
I think they struggled, as
they were torn from the ground.
I can tell, because around
each pothole there is a strewing
of dark flannel leaves, the
bright shed drops of blood
red petals,
like a scattering
of hens’ feathers,
in a butcher’s yard.

More crap from Houghton

This, I declare unto you, will not be a good post. I am doing this primarily to spite young Eddius, who thinks by his complaints he can push me around. I am a free spirit! an unbound entity! I am an artist! and I shall do as I please! That being said, I feel very contrary tonight. Very irritable, very...petulant. Basically I feel like throwing myself down on the floor and flailing and whining and having a big ol' tantrum about things that are nobody's fault but mine. I think the only thing that keeps me from doing so is the fact that our floor's not vacuumed very often. For example...I have been trying to get myself geared up to write this fiction story all weak. I am staunchly resisting my own attempts at persuasion as procrastination rears her ugly head. (Why is procrastination a woman? Why is everything unpleasant personified as a woman? Stupid male chauvinist trojan horse...) So tonight I came home and just felt exhausted because I feel like I have been spending a lot of time with people, a lot of time feeling exceedingly passionate and railing about things (like Star Wars kid and Cat Shaver kid, but also happy things like getting excited about spiritual reading and Project Paul) but my passion always exhausts me so. I am telling you, by the time I get to Wednesday, I just start to crash. Which would have been okay if I had worked on this story thing on Monday or Tuesday evening. But first, when I got home at 8 I took a nap. For an hour and a half. At 8:00 at night. No, no don't ask me, I don't know why either, I've just felt disfunctional all evening. And then I woke up feeling very petulant indeed and continuing to internally resist writing this story and thinking about maybe showering instead, but instead I went and cut out the comics for us to hang on the wall, I footled about with Susannah, I played with the e-mail and went to postsecret...you know what, I don't even know what I did but I have wasted the past 3 hours!!! doing nothing!!! And I feel malaisical about life and about how nobody writes me and I'm tired of having to think all the time, to be the kind of person who talks about gender roles and marriage and the future and the idiocies of Focus on the Family and who is concerned about the place of Christianity in the arts and environmentalism and craft and the nature of stewardship and dealing with friends who are dating and dialoging about the state of the Church and all of these things that supposedly make up my life, and do make up my life and I actually do love, but there has been no shower and no story-writing (which, by the way is another thing that I passionately do want to do and see thrive in its existence; the story not the shower, though that would be nice too) and I don't even know what all is going on in the soul of me. But by crackey, I can vent it all by writing a crappy post, which no one will read because it has no literary merit whatsoever. Well, see if I care, I don't care about excellence anymore, at least not for tonight. I should have just gone to sleep at 8 and then straight on till morning for all I've accomplished. (and look, the whole post is one paragraph...people hate when I do this but I'm not changing it!)

Assorted Pieces (or, The Mixed Bag)

So, for those of you keeping score Pneumonia Boy is more or less back on his feet by this point. Hooray! Not so well that I'd be willing to fight a duel with him and consider it an even match (but someday, my nemesis!) but he's not going have to miss the rest of the semester due to deathly illness.

In the fiction class of joy and...other things, no real travesties to date but last night's viewing of Star Wars Episode III (besides completing the first stage of my Jedi training) has also confirmed that there was really no original detail in that story that I was writing about. Sigh. So now what do I do? Furthermore, our beloved Lori Huth (fiction prof. extraordinaire) is leaving to have a BABY! She also goes to my church group thing and is generally an awesome person and so this is beyond exciting news. There's a baby in her tummy and soon it's going to come out of her tummy and into the world! When you really think about it, that's rather fascinating, how does that even work, a person, inside of another person, coming out of that person to live an independent life. How bizarre. Oh, but also on the fiction front, I definitely found some consecutive pages of somebody's story in the recycling bin of the print center when I was looking for some paper the other day. Definitely featured a stallion from the plains of Amythrec with a curling mane and shadowy forelocks, or something like that. Why do I keep bumping into this stuff?

And, just for fun, I am including Kubla Khan by Coleridge. I have long been fascinated by this poem, particularly the last stanza, and what it says about the mystic power of the writer to create worlds and the fear that that ought to inspire. Maybe it just feeds my ego...Something more profound later, friends, I'm just not up to it tonight.

Kubla Khan
OR, A VISION IN A DREAM.
A FRAGMENT.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

The Day in Which Everything Occurred

Thursday, 10/26/06

So, there I was, a day away from our first batch of workshops in Writing of Fiction (I just lost about half the people who know me and who also actually live near me, they've already heard this story. Good, more for the rest of you) which, for those of you who don't live this crazy lifestyle, is where the class pretty much reads each others stories and then offers comments on them, four drafts to a class period. So, I pick up one of the drafts, the second one in fact that I was reading that day, and, well, I nearly had a stroke. I wished, in fact for a stroke, a stroke would have been preferable to the mental and emotional turmoil and anguish that I found myself thrust into. The topic of the story that I held in my hands could essentially be summed up in two words: Star Wars. The odd thing was, that the story wasn't just like Star Wars or inspired by Star Wars, it basically was Star Wars. I think there was only one new character introduced in the entire story, and it was hard to tell if he was the protagonist, or just an incidental instrument of the plot. But basically, nothing happens in the story that did not happen in some form in one of the movies. An example: In the beginning of the story there's a bunch of sci-fi jargon that I didn't really understand, and then the first coherent piece of the plot was this section explaining to us that Darth Vader used to be Annakin Skywalker, but he couldn't control his rage and felt the Jedi had betrayed him, so he went over to the Dark Side. Shocker! So, next we learn that Darth is really, really angry. He's like, so angry that it's red. It's like white, too, he's so angry that it's white rage which is also red. And the only thing that helps him handle this rage is by damaging others, you know, violence and stuff. It doesn't make the rage go away, or make it any less, but he just has to be violent because of this rage. So, next he turns around and picks up a construction worker with his mind, and chokes him, using the Force. No way! So he killed him by crushing his windpipe without even touching him??? Yeah, seriously.

So, the story is actually about this guy named Jublin Wens who was a Jedi and then kind of fell out of favor because he "failed" the Jedi order through something that sounded vaguely like an accident but then he learned to control his rage a grief (which Darth couldn't manage) and so they gave him a second chance, for which he is still grateful. So when the temple was taken over, this guy was working for the bad guys as a kind of secret agent. Darth is trying to send out a signal to call all the Jedi back to the temple so he can destroy them, while Jublin is sending out a counter signal to warn them all away. So, finally Darth comes to check on him in his little control room, and they have an exchange of words in which Jublin, obviously trying a devious tactical method to make it look like he's blowing his cover while really drawing the cloak of secrecy ever tighter around himself, defends, to DARTH VADER what awesome and generally good people the Jedi are, all the time acting like he's still on Darth's side. Okay...cool...you're losing me.

So then, after some witty repartee, Darth invites him into the hallway to show him...I don't know, his new puppy, when all of a sudden Darth whips around and is all like, "Hey, you can't fool me, I knew you were a Jedi the entire time, now you're gonna get it." Well naturally the light sabers come out and you're getting geared up for a duel to the death, when they exchange a couple of strokes before Jublin gets hit in the face at which point his "bones dissolve, his skin melts" and, in the end, "His head was simply gone." Wow. Really, these mere words cannot possibly convey to you the extent of my frustration in reading this. It was well-nigh impossible to even focus on the words of the story because you just already knew everything that was happening, so why bother. Really, I spent about half an hour to forty minutes reading this thing and trying to form a coherent response. Do you know what I could have been doing in that time? I could have had a great conversation, baked a cake, composed a sonnet, picked flowers, frolicked in a field. Really, anything, anything could have happened, but it did not, it did not happen because my time was taken up (wasted? can I say wasted?) with this thing. I felt rather insulted as a writer and as a human being to not even be faced with a scrap of attempted creativity. Really, I am often not impressed with my own work, you can tell me that my work is the crap of the universe and I might not even disagree, but at least it's my work, they're my characters, I formulate ideas of my own. And yes, yes, I know that there is such a thing in this world as fan fiction (due to the fallenness of man, I have no doubt) but I have been given to expect that even in fan fiction, something happens, something besides what happens in the plot of the movie. As in, the movie is assumed as background knowledge and then something new occurs not just, hey, this guy was trying to do this thing, but it didn't so much work out for him and then his face melts. And really, oddly enough, I have run into a number of people who just must not understand the nature of what we are dealing with here, because they are not really reacting to this information that I am putting before them. Although I have gotten the plagarism question a number of times. The answer is...I don't know. I wish it was illegal. But I just don't know.

Then...well, some more things happened. A day is long here. But then, at around 11:30 that night as I was putzing around the house, we got a phone call from Thryn, who was over at Jeff's house informing us that our dear boy, who has been feeling sick for most of the week at this point, has a fever of 103 and they're on their way to the emergency room. Oh. Ok. Susannah, who was the one on the phone, asked if she would like someone to come with them and Thryn, obviously very distressed was like, Uhh...yeah, sure, I guess. That was obviously going to be me, they're my Jeff and Thryn. We ride in the car a lot together, why not a trip to the emergency room? So I'm running all around the house to get together the stuff (coat, bag, etc.) and am ready to go in about 2 minutes. They are already at the door by this time, Kathryn had run in the house just as I was running out the other door...classic. So, we're all piled in the car and off. I have to say, it was a pretty tense ride for me. I cracked a lot of jokes, me and Thryn both did because what else can you do on a trip to the emergency room except for in between the jokes and the groans from Jeff, I was praying, I was praying hard, because I have had a fever that was 104 on a couple of occassions, and so people have told me stories, lots of nice stories about what happens to your brain when the temperature gets up that high. So, I was scared. Really, really scared. We were driving over to Wellsville, which was about half an hour away from Houghton. Only, when we got there, we could find the hospital. We ended up getting dumped in this residential area. A phone call to Shellie, EMT and direction giver. "Are you sure it's the first set of stop lights?" "I'm sure." It was the second set of stoplights.

So we made it to the hospital and then there was...the waiting. The waiting and not hearing anything. The waiting and trying to focus on homework grabbed for the purpose. The waiting in the room with the fat, old man who kept falling asleep and waking up whenever anybody walked in. Must be a good hospital, he doesn't seem too concerned for whoever he brought. The waiting for a total of four hours before they had lowered his fever and diagnosed him with pneumonia and sent us home. Phew. We were all ridiculously hungry by this point, but why would you stop at 4:30 in the morning to get food when all you wanted to do was get warm and get to bed. Definitely just hit the sack that night and slept until about 1:30 the next day. Had noble intentions of getting up in time for chapel, in time for class, in time for anything, but it did not happen. A very strange day, all told. I have been keeping unfortunately similar hours all weekend, so I have no idea how I will be able to get to bed tonight, or get up tomorrow morning. But, at any rate, this is definitely the most exciting day that I've had in a long, long time. Hopefully it will be the most excitement of that kind that I have for a long, long time. Get better soon, Pneumonia Boy!

Happy Val-Day!
S.

Thoughts on...Stuff

101, like the dalmatians (that was for you, Hope). So, I just had to change my password to get in here, again! I have about six that I use for the various things that I've signed up for, and I'll try them all in different configurations with different user names and even if I do eventually figure it out, the next time I can't remember which one it was that finally did it. Oh, the frustrations of modern life. Right now, I am watching Charlie's Angels and enjoying my last hours of indolence during break. Break was lots of fun, very restful. We got to watch the first two of the Star Wars movies (Episode I and Episode II) and I have already seen 4, 5, and 6, so I am becoming quite the expert. Soon I will be entirely indoctrinated into this closely knit and inconquerable subculture. Once I have unlocked it's secrets I will become the jedi that I was born to be! Also, I shot a rifle for the first time today. Actually, for the first five times. I was extremely averse to trying it, and I'm not sure why. I don't have any problem with guns or hunters or moral issues with it (though, for a hobby, it is a bit expensive, but there are worse). I just don't have good feelings about guns, I guess. But I thought it advantageous to take the experience that life brought me. And, big surprise, I have pretty darn good aim for a first timer. I hit a little can with my very first shot. I think that was very influential in causing me to try the other four shots. Guns are dangerous, though. You have to know what you're doing. Remember that, kids.

So, as so often happens in my goodly group of people, we found ourselves discussing the inimitable conundrum of gender roles in our society and our churches. Just note, everyone, that it was not my fault that this whole thing got started. I was just discussing the group on sexual purity that I taught this summer, and then Jeff went off on how our churches are feminizing young men. You know what the issue is, in my perspective, is that our churches are not really attracting anyone. I am pretty confused about gender roles, but I can clearly see that churches are not attracting men to act as mentors for younger men to teach them how to be men, whatever that means. But there are not a ton of godly women that I've run into recently that I want to be just like. At least, none that I know very well. There are also not a ton of godly teenagers in most of our churches. Who I see, here and in London, and in Australia, is plenty of older women, and some older men. People, if we don't do something soon, the church could just die off.

Okay, I am being facetious to a degree, but am I the only one who's noticed this trend? It's a little hard to establish mentoring programs when the younger generations, by and large, aren't interested. And, on top of that, what on earth is the church supposed to start doing to cultivate the "adventurous, wild heart" of boys. Isn't restraining what our schools and the work force, basically all institutions would be doing the same thing. What is the difference between taming and civilizing young men? I don't know the answers to any of this, quite frankly I am feeling more and more profoundly confused about all this the more we talk about it. I just don't think that there's any one size fits all approach to masculinity or femininity, or pretty much anything, for that matter.

I don't know, volunteers to take a stab at that?

Goodnight,
S.

Life's Gonna Suck When You Grow Up

Children, gather 'round. This is a rather monumental event in the life of this blog: my 100th post, the centi-post, if you will. Wow, I can't believe that I was actually able to commit to this thing for that long. This has gone from being a fairly personal tome to chronicle my life for myself and a few close friends to involving family, extended family, my mother's friends and maybe even a few strangers. You never know...after all, it is the internet. We've gone through two summers, a semester in Australia, and a full semester here at Houghton where I never really said a word except for...twice, I think. Ah yes, those were dark days.

But, I don't want this to spiral down into the dismal verbal depths of some kind of Oscar speech, and I really did log on with something to say (for a change) so I am now going to move on and say it.

It seems to be a common thread running through my dialogue with friends of late that there is reason to expect that life after graduation will in fact be worse than life before graduation. This generally puts me in a dismal mood for many, many reasons. First of all, I can take the point that this exposure to culture, to lectures by world famous authors and debates, gallery exhibits, concerts and operas, not to mention SPOT, will no longer be available after graduation. This is a major bummer because I am the only culture buff in my family, so far as I know, so after I graduate, when I come to be culturally starved as I know I will be, I will wheeze out one Saturday, "Can't we please go to a museum, a concert, something." Only to hear the gleeful but crushing reply: "No, we're going back to the mall!" Bleh. In my mind, you can only have so many pairs of jeans and that Agaci Too cami is going to rip after one good washing, but a night of intelligent conversation and deep thinking lasts forever, changes you in fact.

I don't need anyone to tell me that I won't have friends again after graduation. All your life you are socialized to this environment where you remain in groups of people the same age as you, when you get into college they even start breaking it up so you are generally put with people of the same sorts of interests. This is not even to speak of the contact with professor's and teachers who are at the top of their field, brilliant and wise and funny people whom you rather adore and don't really know where you will find in such high concentration again ever in your whole entire life. But then out you go into the world and there's no one there to meet but everyone, and what if you're just a shy sort of person who would rather not have to start all over making new friends and rebuilding her life AGAIN, after establishing a life she is already perfectly content with.

No wait, not perfectly content. The main flaw in my happiness here is and has always been the pace of life, the constant stress and busyness, the complete inability for anyone to get on top of their work, their social time, their family time or life in general. Yep, that's been rough for the past three years. But, ever optomistic, my goodly friends assure me that this, too, only gets worse after graduation. Out you go, free as a bird, for about 15 minutes before you're finding a job and a place to live, making the rent, doing the dishes and the cooking, washing your socks, then your husband might could come along and you have to rub his shoulders after a hard day at the office, take the kids out for soccer practice and piano and dance and gymnastics, and walk the dog. And what if you hate your job, it will still be what you spend the majority of your time doing. And then, they tell me, even when you come home you never catch a break, it's always errands this and demands that and another mess that needs cleaning up.

So here is the picture that's been painted for me: no culture, no intellectual stimulation, no friends, no mentors, no time, no peace, no reflection, no joy.

Well, poop.

That is what I have to say, poop on that. If that's the case, then you better believe I'm gonna be a super senior; I'm gonna be really, really super by the time my 32nd year of college rolls around with still no graduation in sight. But you know what, no matter how convinced everybody seems to be, no matter how convinced I feel, I can't believe that. First of all, even if you do have house chores to do after a day of work, it's at least a change of pace, which is very different from the schoolwork all day, go home and do homework mentality of education. Furthermore, I reckon it's almost impossible to go through life without making any friends. There's got to be people like the people I know here elsewhere in the world. After all, after I graduated from high school I didn't think I'd ever find anymore friends, and now I practically have more than I know what to do with. (she pauses and blinks, trying not to think of her earlier comment about how the educational system facilities friendships. Even if I am an introvert to the Nth degree, other people are still extroverts, so with a half decent attitude I might just be able to find somebody. And then invite them over for soup and to play Cranium some night when you're all NOT doing homework. Besides which, there's a good possibility that I could end up as a writer. Do you know how much "alone time" writer's are supposed to have (i.e.-time for them to doodle around in their creative juices and basically do whatever they want?) Sure there are the pressures of publishing. But most writers simply do not spend the entire day writing, which suits me just fine. Gives me time to learn to play the guitar, read books, build birdhouses and go for nature walks and any other wonderful occupation that might pop into my head. And, even, even if all this fails, there is always the nunnery. You don't think I'd do it, but I know I would. If I found life as crappy as every one seems to expect me to, it's off to the nunnery. So don't any of you be surprised if it happens, cause I told you I'd do it.

Anybody who wants to join me in the "Life is NOT going to suck after college" revolution, feel free to post a comment. But if you're here to rain on my parade, save it, because I already hear more crap than I can handle.

Your Toys-R-Us Kid,
S.

A Room of One's Own

While realizing this is out of season and irrelevant at this point, I like my pictures and so you get to see my room (my Houston room where I am not living right now) whether you want to or not! Here goes:



So this is the door to my room...



Really cool sign I made for my door...



I made this "Welcome" sign...it's corny, but...I made it!



Beautiful Spanish fan I got from my Pappap...



My sleeping spot, with pillows that I also sewed myself...



My goodwill coffee table and awesome rug thing...also my dresser



My bookcase and nautical corner...



The awesome view of the brick wall, brightened with my colored glass stuff...



Artsy shot of the bottles...



My (small) collection of antique photographs...



My closet decorations (including Reliant K and a map of Narnia...






Really awesome painting I made in my Studio Art class in high school...brownie points if you can guess the "mentor artist" and have any idea what kind of commentary I'm making in this piece.

That's all for now. I might have a couple of pictures that I'll use later. But, yes, all for now. I'm at school now in a completely different room which nevertheless looks really awesome. Do I see another photo essay coming on?

G'night,
S.

Close Call

So I'm sitting here, in my living room, taking care of business and getting drowsy when all of a sudden I hear this tapping noise at the back windows. Fortunately Heather is already in bed, but even as it is my heart is suddenly in my throat because it sounds for all the world like someone tapping away at the back door, looking for a way in, or at least punk kids throwing dirt clods at our windows. So, being the astute protector of the homefront that I am, I first run over and check the deadbolt. It is secure, so my next move is to go and get pants. I have no idea what's waiting for me in our backyard, but whatever it is, I am not willing to face it in my nightgown. So then I go and turn on the porch light, and the noises stop momentarily. I picture the punk kids seeing the light and knowing that I'm on the them, running away. But then the tapping noises start again, right around the door, sounding for all the world like a killer jiggling the knob. I slip open one slat in our mini blinds to peer out. No dark figures lurking around the door. Suddenly the noise changes, all of a sudden there's a buzzing. I picture a precision instrument slicing through the window glass near the knob. But then I realize that the noise is actually coming from way down in the corner, near the floor. I move to a corner window and look out to where I can see the jamb on the door. And sitting there on the stoop is what I would basically assume to be the biggest bug ever, pending the Guiness board's decision. I think there may have been more than one, but at any rate, this must have been the most determined. Confident that our awesome human-house building technology would keep the little critter out, but I did take the precaution of turning the lights back off so they would no longer be attracted. Now, granted, it was only a very, very large bug, but I think that I should be lauded for my exceptional bravery in guarding the homestead in my mother's absence (she has been in Denver all week). After all, it could have been a killer.

Oh, and I was working today on a photo tour of my room, which is very cool and I've been meaning to show you guys since we painted it. Now you might finally get a chance, but not tonight, since I don't have the pictures loaded yet. Tomorrow, maybe?

Yours with valor,
S.

One week to rule them all

Two major pieces of news since our return from the Hill Country: Last night was pie mania!!! My mom's friend is a prolific baker, but she admitted that she struggled with her pie crusts. I have never been able to make a decent pie crust in my entire life. So we all resolved to conquer this thing together. We got together and, long story short, we ended up making three perfect pies with the most tender, flaky, buttery gorgeous crusts you have ever seen in your life. One peach pie, and two chocolate cream pies. I was really nervous making the crust, but it was good to have Jeannie there, because her experience made me feel more at ease. The most difficult part was trying to decide when to stop adding water, but we must have gotten it right because they came together like magic. Jeannie could whip out those crusts in no time flat, but she let me roll out one too. See, the thing that you have to realize is that a little tearing or cracking is no catastrophe, it's easy to pinch back together. I guess with pie crusts, perfectionism is overrated. Whupah, another notch in my belt of culinary seduction, another jewel in the tiara of this domestic goddess.

So the other thing is that I have my last honors project book due tomorrow. After that, I have the whole week to do what I will. And what I will is to try to squeeze everything that I have neglected to get to all summer into this one week. And my mom is going to be out of town for the entire week. I'm already going over my little list and wigging out over all that must be done before heading back to school. Fortunately, I have a big ol' slice of chocolate cream pie to help me calm down.

Phew...in, out, in, out,
S.

Nights in gems and clover

As I write this, los techodores are pounding away all over the roof of this house, day 2 of the racket that woke me this morning. We are getting a new roof this week, thanks to the damage done by a major hail storm this past spring and our friendly neighborhood insurance company. I can walk through the house and hear something that sounds like it's crumbling down right in front of me, only to realize that it's just those little pellets rolling down the roof. Crazy.

This past weekend I was again away, as you might have noticed. Maybe not. But that's okay cause I'm back now. We spent this last weekend in the Hill Country of Texas, visiting our good friends, Marda and Jerry. Let me just state right now, I love the Hill Country. It is so different from Houston, out in the country, hilly, arid, with almost a touch of tuscan flavor in the dusty, ruddy cliffs and large opulent houses that peek out from the tops of the hills. The yard every morning was full of hummingbirds whirring up to the porch for a sip of nectar and breast jays dominating the yard with flashes of brilliant blue. We watched over 3 million bats churn out of an old railroad tunnel before flying out to look for an evening snack. We floated down a gorgeous strech of the Guadalupe (in Texas pronounced Gwa-da-lopee) River in the shade of centegenarian cypress trees that reached down from their lofty heights, stretching to touch the face of the river. We went to an honest to goodness barn dance in an honest to goodness barn with open sides and twinkling Christmas lights hung from all the rafters. Country music abounded in the cool dark night and couples whirled in Texas two-steps around the dance floor with all the pagentry of Czar Nicholas' court. I sat in the night breeze on the third story porch overlooking the river valley at watched a million stars sweep over the sky and watched some of them shoot off in a solitary, short-lived blaze of glory. Then the moon rose over the farthest hill, large and orange as a Halloween pumpkin. So, all in all, it was a pretty amazing weekend. I felt like I was really getting a taste of what it is to be a Texan, long lazy afternoons on the river, barn dances in the evening, camp revival meetings and a lunch of barbeque and church ladies' covered dishes on a Sunday morning. I don't know if any of this makes any sense, probably not, because I have a major identity crisis when it comes to a geographic kind of belonging. Perhaps its better not to get too attached to Texas either, but I don't know, I can't really help it. I'm coming to like it here, or to like what this place or these people stand for, or something. But at any rate, it was a really great weekend, and very restorative. It gives me happy feels...okay, goodnight.

S.