Halloween! For Christians?

Our house closed on September 1, 1999. As soon as most of the boxes (don't look under the basement steps) were unpacked and the place looked halfway decent, I decorated for Halloween. I was so looking forward to having cute kids crying for candy (urgh...too much alliteration). Being a huge candy fan myself, I was also looking forward to having more candy than the kids would take, thus assuring myself of a decent munching supply through Thanksgiving. I spent roughly $30.00 on Halloween candy. I had 4 bags of Milk Duds, 30 Peanut Butter cups and 3 bags of fun-size Milky Way. How do I remember this? Because we had two trick or treaters, and that Halloween candy sat around my house for months--until I was so sick of it that I threw it out. It was in danger of being served to the same two kids the next year.

Friends of ours had candy-loving small children, and I had waited for several hours for their boy and girl to stop by. When they didn't come, I ventured over to find out the whole story. It went something like this....they don't believe in Halloween because it celebrates the Devil and Evil and Satan and Witches. So they had a party at their church. Where the kids came in costume, they handed out candy and there was a play. About the Devil. And Evil. And Satan. And a Witch. So, in summation for the jury...I who have no problem with Halloween as a holiday spent the evening sitting on my front porch dejectedly eating unwanted Reese Cups. Friends of ours who think the whole thing is Satan's Birthday Feast and should be avoided had a giant party featuring Satan himself (albeit in a villainous role). I don't get it. What did I miss?

I've always celebrated Halloween. Cheifly because it is my Dad's birthday, and he loves anything that has anything to do with a holiday, and will walk across broken glass for a candy bar. This man plants a tree every Arbor Day. To have his actual day of birth fall on a holiday wherein candy is prominantly featured is the ultimate example of God 's sense of who His children are. When I went to a Christian School, we didn't celebrate Halloween. We had, conveniently placed at the end of October, a Harvest Festival. Yep. We got candy. We wore costumes. We bobbed for apples and made popcorn balls. There were no witches or ghosts, but we did toast the pumpkin seeds that we all brought in from carving our Jack-O-Lanterns at home. This post-modern Christian approach to Halloween has always left me scratching my head. What are we doing? Do we not believe in it? Then don't have a party. Do we just not want to glorify evil? Then call it Halloween, but don't have witches and devils. If we really are after a strong witness, why don't we reclaim November 1 as All Saints' Day? Or do we not care about the faith enough to celebrate that, but we will have Trunk N Treat in the church parking lot? In High School (back to the same Christian school where I started) I asked a parent volunteer these questions. She told me her personal problem with it is that Hallloween gives Satan an opportunity to have us focus on things that are gruesome--like Dracula and Frankenstein.
This from a religion that tells the children stories where sluts dance nude for their stepfathers and are rewarded with heads on a plate. Yes. We, whose Lord hangs bloodied from a cross, are strangers to the gruesome.

Personally, I'm celebrating Halloween. And I'm calling it "Halloween" while I do.

Happy Birthday, Brittney!

A very happy birthday to Brittney of NiT

I Hate My iPod Photo

Blogging will be light over the next few days as I will be unavoidably detained with other duties. The only reason I'm blogging at all right now is because I'm waiting on my iPod Photo to finish its update. It's taking forever. I need my music. I cannot vacuum without it.

937 Words

That's the final tally of today's book writing. Slightly under my goal of 1,000. I think I'd make more progress if I didn't unwrite more than I write. I am happier with what I write on a more regular basis. At least we're well past "A dark and stormy night."

I know there are a few other writers who ping into here from time to time. You may be interested in a new bloglisting I've linked in the sidebar. No. Not Celebrity Scientologist Blog. That's for everyone. Author's Blogs is a place for both aspiring and published authors to link their blogs, and a place for everyone to read about the path to publishing from all points of view. It is not for people who's only writing work is on their blog, but it is for those ( Huck, this means you) who are working on a book, are writing query letters for their book or are stumping for their book.

Check it out. It's fun.

The Woes Of The Dance Committee

Back over Labor Day Weekend, we had a bit of a dustup in the Nashosphere. So the fence-mending was tonight, and I had to bail at the next-to-last minute. As I told my fellow conspirator, it's like we're the nerds who decorate the gym but stay home the night of the prom.

Anyway, since prom was happening without me, I decided I'd burn off my loneliness with a bracing round of Pilates. Okay. Ouch. But aside from that, in the middle of one of the mind-expanding gut-clenching exercises I realized that you all have killed Rock & Roll. I hope you're happy. My workout mix consists of a healthy dose of Jim Steinman,
flavoured with bits of The Who, AC/DC and Jethro Tull. This is music that makes you want to behave badly. It makes you want to get on a motorcycle and go like...a bat out of hell. This is Rock & Roll. Much as Tim and I have spent the last 12 years of our marriage making fun of that actor named Bill who isn't the one in Independence Day but is the one in Twister, I must say that I agree with his whinging dismissal of Jonas. Much like the Dread Pirate Roberts dude in Twister, Rock & Roll went and got itself some Corporate Sponsors. And they've killed it dead. Come on people. Mariah frakkin' Carey? This is what you give me when Ian Anderson hangs up his angry flute? I'm not exercising to TLC or Brittney Spears or whatever no-talent hack is pretty enough to warrant soundboards remixing their voice into tolerable. If I want to see pretty breasts I'll either buy a magazine or go and sit in the locker room at the Green Hills YMCA. If I want to hear music that makes me want to burn something and dance, I'll have to revisit the record collection. But since none of it ever grows old, I guess I'm fine with that.

But here I am on prom night and I must tell you, from the bottom of my heart that
Nothin' ever grows in this rotten ol' hole. Everything is stunted and lost. And nothin' really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothin's ever worth the cost.

It's Like I'm Superman, And He's the Anti-Kryptonite

In a bizarro world where Superman needs Kryptonite to survive. I would be Superman--recast as a 35-year old woman--and Kryptonite would be cheese.

And Patrick, with his new blog Lactose Free Nashville is Lex Luthor.

I Believe

I have true faith. I believe in a lot of things that others consider goofy or strange, and that doesn't bother me. But one of my fondest beliefs is constantly under fire.

I believe in the Loch Ness Monster. Firmly, unshakably. Almost. I suppose if someone could show me crisp, clear, underwater footage of the entire 22-mile long Loch--completely free of Nessie--then I might be convinced otherwise. Until that unhappy day, I will stand my ground.

Why do I care? Because I like the thought that there is something elusive yet tangible just out of sight. Because I like the thought that in a world of nanotechnology, cloning, geneome mapping and space exploration that there is something in our own backyard we haven't conquered and don't quite understand. Nessie is a paradigm shift just waiting to happen.

What do I think she is? I'd like for her to be a plesiosaur if for no other reason than it would be an even more radical charge than if she were a giant eel or serpentine whale. Currently, the Virgin Eel theory seems to be the most popular among Cryptozoologists and authors who are former gym teachers. Really, though, as long as she exists I'll be happy.

And in case you were wondering, yes I do believe we actually landed on the moon but still feel very strongly that The Stonecutters are the best explanation to date for Steve Guttenberg.

Coulda Fooled ME....

My blog is worth $27,097.92.
How much is your blog worth?

What You Swore You'd Never See

There are some things that are predictable in the Nashosphere. Aunt B. will become irritated with a conservative opinion from time to time. Bob Krumm will hold a conservative opinion every time. Brittney will be waiting gleefully for something bad to happen to her enemies and Big Orange Michael will either be rooting for UT or watchin' some TV. Then there's the ubiquitous soft-core Bono over at Sharon's place.

But today I saw something I never ever thought I'd see.

Glurge. At Kleinheider's.

That's right. Hard Right. The original 29-year-old charming curmudgeon. And he's posted a heartwarming story with a lesson attached. I appreciate the lesson. I'm dumbfounded by the context. I love his constant ability to suprise us all with contrarianism. This may be his boldest act yet.

Cussing Is A Classist Plot

I have had this theory for years. And I'm revisiting it now because this post over at Voice Of Hope sparked the thought in my brain. And then I remembered that this very day was chastened for dropping the f-bomb.

Crap, sh*t, dang, damn, f***, bloody.... Who determines these words and their meanings? Where did they originate and how?

My mom used to call this stuff "barnyard talk. You could say "urinate" but not "piss". You could say "defecate" but not "crap" or "sh!t". And of course there's "make love, have intercourse, have sex" but no eff words allowed. My personal favourite was that under no circumstance could we utter the word "fart". Instead we had to say "stinker" or "pass gas". There really are no words for how it cracks me up to hear my 33-year old attorney brother say "who stinkered?"

It always struck me as curious. If the words mean the same thing, why is one okay but the other is rude-low-off colour? Personally I blame the French and the Catholic Church. In thinking about it some more, all of the baddie phonemes condemed to the gutter seem to be good old Anglo-Saxon/Old English words. Some examples:

Shit: Shit is a very old word, with an Old English root. *Scítan is the Old English word. It has cognates in most of the other Germanic languages and shares a common Germanic root with modern equivalents like the German scheissen.

See You Next Tuesday (Sorry...I can't stand this word at all): This word for the female genitalia dates back to the Middle English period, c.1325. (Although researchers have found a London street named Gropecuntelane from c. 1230.) Although the word cannot be traced back further than this, there are cognates in a variety of other Germanic languages, indicating a Germanic origin.

It does not come from the Latin cunnus, which is also a term for the female pudenda, although a common root back in the mists of time cannot be discounted. Use of the word as term of abuse for a woman is a 20th century sense, dating to 1929.

F**K Yeah, despite what Van Halen thinks, the origin of this word has nothing to do with carnal knowledge--legal or otherwise. There are whole books about the subject but Word Origins says :

The root is undoubtedly Germanic, as it has cognates in other Northern European languages: Middle Dutch fokken meaning to thrust, to copulate with; dialectical Norwegian fukka meaning to copulate; and dialectical Swedish focka meaning to strike, push, copulate, and fock meaning penis. Both French and Italian have similar words, foutre and fottere respectively. These derive from the Latin futuere.

While these cognates exist, they are probably not the source of f***, rather all these words probably come from a common root. Most of the early known usages of the English word come from Scotland, leading some scholars to believe that the word comes from Scandinavian sources. Others disagree, believing that the number of northern citations reflects that the taboo was weaker in Scotland and the north, resulting in more surviving usages. The fact that there are citations, albeit fewer of them, from southern England dating from the same period seems to bear out this latter theory.

Piss Word Origin: 1250-1300 ME (Middle English) pissen

Fart Word Origin: Old English feortan

And so forth. So what do the French and the Church have to do with it? My theory goes like this. The Normans invade Britain, conquering the land in 1066. Along with their Norman aristocracy and official Anglo-Norman Court Language they brought closer ties to The Continent and the Holy Roman Church. The proper way for ladies and gentlemen to speak was either the cultured Anglo-Norman way or the Learned Latin way of the Church. You know all those fine Latin and French words. Like "urinate"; "defecate"; "intercourse". So here we are, nearly a thousand years after the Norman Conquest, still afraid to speak the language of a conquered people. Still playing kiss-up to the King.

And in case anyone is wondering why I still censored some of the words in this post...I don't want to get the "Explicit Content" label on Patrick and Lydia's blog. It'd break my heart. By the way, my sister apologises to you, Patrick, for using the word "A-----le" in the comments the other day. That word derives from the Old English ears, as opposed to the very correct French term "Derriere".

Frakkin' Big Orange Michael!!

That other BSG nerd in the Nashosphere made me take this quiz.

I weep because they are so right about me.

You scored as Capt. Lee Adama (Apollo). You have spent your life trying to life up to and impress your Dad, shame he never seemed to notice. You are a stickler for the rules. But in matters of loyalty and honour you know when they have to be broken.

What New Battlestar Galactica character are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

Imagine, QuizFarm is able to cut to the root of my pain so easily. In spite of my love for dangerous women...

Wonder-Working Power (And Piles of Cash) In The Blood

Anne Rice has found Jesus and is writing a book about it. Not that there isn't already a pretty thorough book about the Guy, where He comes from and who His parents are. But as most authors know, finding a plot can sometimes be difficult, so why not work with well-outlined source material to come up with your next series of works?
Besides which, the entire publishing industry is viewing religious literature as the lifeboat for its sinking sales. Apparently God and miracles and finding your salvation after lots o' steemeeee secks are the greatest things to move off the shelves. Well, that and graphic novels. And who among us, besides Neil Gaiman, can draw?

I am such the jealous brother of the prodigal son on this one. We're killing the fatted calf for Anne's return to the faith? When the rest of us aren't stinking rich from fairy tale and vampire erotica? Convenient of her to find Jesus now that she's gotten loads o' dough and there's plenty more cash to be made. All that being said, I agree with the commentor at Donald Sensing's who says that perhaps she'll raise the quality level of Christian fiction a few notches. I'd like to see that.

I read most Christic literature and paraBiblical work i can get my hands on, because the topic of Who Jesus Was is as fascinating to me as the topic of Who Christ Is. I'll read Anne's books. Probably from the library, though.

UPDATE I Gaiman can't even draw. TRACER!!!!!

UPDATE II Overheard at Lunch:
Me: So Anne Rice is only writing books about Jesus now.
Unidentified Lunch Partner: Well, I hope Jesus enjoys having a vampire shove a whip up his butt.

Random Wha?!?

I thought Bill Hobbs was quitting. He's the workingest quit man I ever saw.

Blogelo: I Call Shenanigans

Blogelo is the Hula Hoop of Today.

Yeah, so what....I wasn't even listed until I added myself. Not that I suffer from an overinflated sense of self-importance or anything. Unlike some people I didn't spend all day trying to boost my ranking. Primarily because I didn't, and still dont, understand how.

Now, I get that the whole deal is based on the Elo system for rating comparative players. I first heard of Elo in relation to Go several years ago, and now it's everywhere in relation to chess.

It strikes me as odd to try to forcibly apply Elo to blogging because it's a Game Theory measurement. It involves comparative rankings based on a system of wins and losses. Now, I've had some bad posts in my day, up to and most probably including this one. However, posting is not a zero-sum game. Okay. Sometimes it's a zero-all game. But we're not talking about Daily Kos right now.

Right now we are talking about how I feel like an overgrown toddler easily distracted by sparkly colors on shiny objects. "Look, mommy! There's my blog. It's ranked number 27." I have no idea how this ranking happened...external links? Sitemeter hits? number of people who generally think I'm an jerk? Cause I gotta tell you, if we're going with the Jerk Index I woulda thought Ida been higher up.

Please, Some Geek In Tennessee, please explain to us bottom feeders (okay, just me....) how on earth this works and how in the world we can all gang up and unseat the Vandy Alum Champ.

UPDATE

So he explains it all right here in the blog section. Good to know that I figured out how to read this late in the game. Still not seeing how a zero-sum rating system can be strictly applied to blogging, though. But I know in my heart I'm as good as, say, Slashdot. hahahahahahaha!!!!!

Warner Bros. MAKE IT STOP!!!

In searching for a place to rip off my banner graphic for the previous post I came across the wallpaper/cover art for the Goblet of Fire Soundtrack.




WHO DO I HAVE TO DECK AT WARNER BROS.?

Harry and Hermione are not a couple. They have never been a couple. Only in the twisted minds of Rita Skeeter and some crazy people who apparently don't catch on quickly to the written word have they ever been a couple.

I am just sure that I'm late to this bandwagon of WB abuse seeing as how I've been on Pottersabattical and missed all the premovie blow-by-blow over at Muggle Net, HPANA, etc. But still. I'm adding my two knuts to the pot.

UPDATE

Should be "WHOM". I forget my grammar when indignant.

Harry Potter and The Cauldron Of Kloves

Connie Lane is a Steve Kloves apologist. Many fans place the blame for the movies' wild off-course veering squarely on the scriptwriter's shoulders. Connie has written a painstaking defense of his work to tell us why we shouldn't. There are several scenes that should be included, written by Kloves, that were left out. They do more to further the true romance of Ron and Hermione, the humourous and witty character of Ron and the magical nature of the books. Yet somehow, some way, these scenes were left out of the movies, giving us instead the non-canonical HoYay! of Remus and Sirius, along with the Eejit!Ron the filmgoers have come to know.

I still blame Kloves. And Warner Bros. And the directors. And even Rowling. Sorry. I don't know how much say she actually has in every aspect of the projects, but I gather from interviews and press reports that it is considerable. Surely she could have spoken up for Ron's integrity, and for the better background of the Ron/Hermione romance we know to be lurking.

I'm rereading the books, as I do every October and have come to the conclusion that the books and movies just simply can't be judged by the same standard. As I said over at Connie's, the movies are interesting glimpses into someone else's imagination of different pieces of the books. Just as fan art shows us visual concepts of scenes, so do the movies. I'll still see them, but as far as my imagination of the books goes, I have more in common with the [Book 6 Spoilers In Links] magnificent stuff Marta has done over at Art Dungeon.

Why I Gave Up

Comment word verification is back on because one of the countless blogspammers I've so blithely ignored has sent some spam that has corrupted my inbox.

If I can ignore you, fine. Spam to your [where your heart would be chose other organ]'s content. When you start sending things that fark up my life I must move past you. Your freedom to swing your spam ends where my inbox begins. Or something like that.

On Being A Happy Idiot

It's Monday morning. Chances are you are up and going to a job. If you are, it's highly likely that most of your job consists of what Neal Stephenson calls "making license plates"--i.e. the boring stuff you have to do to earn enough money to live. Most people have a dream that keeps them going. Some are grandiose, like buying a boat to sail around the world or owning a bar in Key West. Some are the more mundane necessities of keeping a house, buying braces for your kid or eating more than peanut butter and government cheese. (For the record, I love government cheese. Why can't we buy the stuff on the open market?)

I think I have the most masochistic long-range goal ever imaginable, at least for a writer. I want to own a used book store. Sure, nothing enforces your perspective better than staring at the wrinkled and dusty yellow corpses of other people's work. The upside is seeing the life of a book continue. Not every book is To Kill A Mockingbird. They don't all have treasured places in someone's heart. But most books can be a goood way to spend an afternoon or a plane ride and giving someone something to take their mind off their own license-plate making is no bad thing.

People come to used book stores because they want a book. Sometimes they want to take a chance on a new author without paying full price. Sometimes they want to catch up on all the stuff they've missed. I want to be the person who putters around among the old words and is there to give them a second chance. It's not as glamourous as Key West but it's still a ncie little dream.

Elementary, My Dears

My sister is one of my best friends. She's a smart cookie who is capable of a great many things. She decided to become an elementary school teacher. Since I don't have human children, Miss Bee (not Aunt B.) is my only link to the world of lower education. I'm thinking about her today because of the focus in the Nashosphere on ADD, gender learning differences, and education in general.

Miss Bee is the living embodiment of Lisa Simpson. Like Hermione, her boggart would be a piece of homework with a grade lower than A+. She is a fanatic about the psychology of early childhood development and loves all things related to educational theory. She graduated college with a Summa Cum Laude, in spite of her one non-A grade in, of all things, Badminton. (Life sure gave her the birdie on that one! Ha!) Her whole career, including college, she has been mired with people who wanted an easy college degree without the hassle of calling Sally Struthers' toll-free number. For a woman who takes education very seriously it rubs salt in the wound to see these people get and keep the better jobs more easily. Here's how it works: you have someone who isn't particularly great at the harder courses in college. They love crafts, they love activities and they love extended art projects. Like scrapbooking, bulletin board design and decorative theming. There's precious little call for home ec, so these people (generally women) take it on the road. They become elementary school teachers. And they get a job in a school where people like them (call them the "crafties") outnumber people like Miss Bee 3 to 1. Kids in Miss Bee's kindergarten learn to read. They learn basic math skills and foundational geometry. They learn social responsibility. She spends an additional 8 hours every day after the the busses pull away to design lessons tailored to the abilities and needs of each of her 40 kids in two kindergartens. The kids in her fellow teacher's ( A Crafty) class are making an art project to present to the principle for Bosses' Day. The project has nothing to do with developing skillsets other than that particular teacher's suckup ability. Yet which teacher do the parents rave about the most? Yep. The Crafty. Because the kids "have a blast" in her class. They "come home happy".

Where I'm going with this is that I know the world is a big place but people are the same all over. I'm sure that in elementary schools across the country, parents are satisfied with having their kids come home happy. They like going to the schools and seeing the classrooms designed to be a mock 100-Acre Wood. I was dumbfounded on our recent tour of Miss Bee's schools. Elementary School classrooms look less like a school and more like an extension of the idealized nursery. Who cares that a 6 year old can't tell the difference between a square and a rectangle, can't count past 10 and only knows 11 random letters of the alphabet? What does it matter, as long as there are construction paper-and-glitter monuments to their adorable youth, filed away in mothers' scrapbooks? Children expect to be entertained, and dislike the discipline of learning. Teachers who don't want to mess with behaviour problems are more than happy to drug and paste away the fidgets of a normal child. No child may be left behind, but apparently they are moving ahead with little idea where they're going.

If The Picture Doesn't Immediately Tell You Why...

I know I've been really bad about not following the news lately. Delay--yawn. Miers--yawn. Rove/Plame/etc--who cares? But this, this is news to make me sit up and take notice. Apparently Barbie and Ken may get back together in the spring of '06. Their 43-year long courtship has been frought with peril and more little pink houses than John [Couger] Mellencamp ever dreamed. Yet after standing by her crotchless man for four decades, Barbie moved on to a bloke called "Blaine". This Australian Boogie Border is a surfer by day, partier by night. To me he sounds like a no-good wastrel. Who wants to be involved with a roving beach bum? I know when I hear "globtrotting surfer" I imnediately think of comfort, security and committment.


But these pictures show the Ken of Barbie's long-suffering affections. Gee, I can't imagine why THIS guy was loathe to settle down with that conniving coke-whore clotheshorse! If this guy isn't the number one possesor of a Queer Eye, I have no idea who is. All he needs is a white tiger or an ostentatious piano.


Did I mention that my parents never let me have a Barbie when I was a kid because they were either to exploitative or expensive? (Depends on the day you ask) I'm hurt that I missed out on all of this high drama. But I'm sure glad that the Associated Press was there to keep me informed.

It's Bad When You Can't Even Get The Cops To Show

This fine police officer missed his court date. What an example he's setting for the young people.

It Sounds Dirty But Isn't

If you're interested, Big Orange Michael delivers me a sound oral fisking for my opinions on Lost.


For the record, I'm counting Night Stalker, Medium, The Ghost Whisperer, Invasion, Threshold and Surface as Lost spinoffs. Not techinically spinoffs, yes. But they are jumping on the Wierd Is Cool bandwagon.

And I still don't think Lost started weird, Michael. I think The Sixth Sense and The Others, combined with Harry Potter were the gateway to "weird" in our current pop culture.


And could I italicise more?!?

Watching Blind Dates in Korean, With Subtitles

Yeah, that was fun.

Pardon Me, May I Blaspheme Our Lord and Faith?

*Warning* This post is blunt. If you don't like bluntness, change the channel.

The local progressive Christian blog has started a conversation about the humanity of Christ. Always a good conversation to have in my opinion. However, they've started a general musing in the public arena about Jesus' masturbatory habits.

Wonderful.

There ought to be a statistic. I'll make one up. Every 8 minutes someone in the world realises that the "fully God, fully man" Jesus enjoyed many of the more crude aspects of the "fully man" side of things. Someone somewhere right now is astonished anew at the thought of the Lord being constipated, having a runny nose or a bad hair day. Every now and then, this fixation with the bodily functions of God turns to the sexual. Sometimes it gets turned into a philosophically thoughtful and poetic book, a crap movie or a downright blasphemous play.

I don't think there is anything wrong with contemplating the humanity of Jesus. It helps us understand the depths of His sufferings and sacrifice. It shows us that He can relate to the most mundane of our issues. Where that contemplation takes a nasty turn is when He is ascribed sinful behaviours. I realise that many of you who read this think that Christ (of whom I am not ashamed) is a lunatic or liar. I, and billions like me, believe He is Lord. We believe He is Lord because He was the pure and blameless sacrifice. As death came through Adam, we receive Life anew through
Christ. Jesus' death and resurrection have brought us into renewed communication with God.

While He was undeniably fully human, He was also fully God and therefore without sin. The fully Human half of Jesus was born into a Jewish family, a descendant of David. (See Matthew 1 for His completel lineage.) That fully-human Jew was a member of a religion that holds masturbation to be a sin. To suppose that He masturbated is to blaspheme the Lord.

Cole Wakefield tells me that Jesus did not uphold the letter of the Jewish law. That is a misread of His conversations with the pharisees. When Jesus refuted their accusations He was able to do so not by saying that the law was obsolete, but by pointing to another section of the law the pharisees had overlooked in their zeal to persecute Jesus and His followers. In Matthew 5:17, He tells us that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Part of His fulfillment of the law surely includes abiding by its strictures.

Yes, Jesus was fully man. Yes He had to go to the bathroom, got hungry and thirsty and felt angry, sad and lonely. Did He sin? No. Contrary to popular culture, blasphemy is not enlightenment. I don't care if you burn Bibles, I don't care if you criticise me or other Christians. None of it has any significance. Please, I ask you, though. Do not profane the Cross of Christ.

I Just Love It

Things I just enjoy for their own sake:

Grey's Anatomy (Thanks, Lacy

Van Morrison

The Godfather

Chocolate Ice Cream with Whipped Cream

Irish music

Coke with crushed ice and lime

The smell of nutmeg

Veronica Mars

The sound of somebody stepping into a swimming pool

The smell of chlorine and concrete

Toasted marshmallows

Cheese

How Harry Potter Ruined 'Lost'

Lost started out as a happy accident. Originally conceived as a dramatic Gilligan's Island, the powers that be brought in some script retoolers. Those young dudes added a bit of hocus pocus because right now weird sells. It sold enough to earn an Emmy, countless spinoffs and legion websites. There is now, for those of you who can't get enough, a a bi-monthly magazine covering the show in excruciating Tiger Beat detail. Many of us who have tuned in from the first roar of the now-forgotten beast are now puzzled over the non-events in Button Down The Hatch and seriously wondering how many colonics it takes for J.J. Abrams to write this show. Why are we so picky? Why are we not sitting back and enjoying the ride?
I blame Harry Potter. There are now six books in that series, and readers everywhere (Brittney, what are you waiting for?) have fallen in love with them. The first time you read the books you're definitely surprised by the amount of forethought and structure J.K. Rowling gives them. A character who barely rates a mention in the first book becomes an integral part in subsequent books. What may seem like a mere decorative element in one story line will--three or four books later--turn into the lynchpin which drives the series. This intricate plotting and investment in story arc is a longstanding literary construct. It has its roots in Judaic folklore and can be seen in works as diverse as The Arabian Nights , Tom Jones** and Les Miserables. However, it seems to be a dying art in postmodern American fiction. My initial excitement over Lost was largely because that was what Abrams et al were promsing the audience. (I certainly don't keep tuning in for the CheeseKate glimpses of Evangeline Lilly in wet shirts and towels.) They've flirted with the idea of a detailed continuity and Moebius-strip arc many times. TiVos across the country are worn out with the task of spotting the "look, here's Hurley in Sun & Jin's Flashback" moments. How many of us were glued to the screen hunting for the tattoo on the shark's arse? Yet I can't help but feel this trail of breadcrumbs leads...nowhere. Maybe before Harry Potter we'd all have been fine with the smoke and mirrors. Now we're spoiled for finely woven fabric.

Which you'll get if you flip the channel over to Veronica Mars. There is hope for the arc-driven show. If only I could still hope for Lost.

**As far as I'm concerned, Tom Jones is the finest piece of English literary fiction ever written.

Extreme Makeover Home Edition: Oh No He Di-int!!

So, we're watching this evening's special two-hour makeover featuring a camp for special needs kids. This camp will take any child regardless of their skillset. It was a remarkable group of people. Apparently the design team was moved as well. Whether it was a gargantuan Freudian slip by Ed or a mischievious bent in one of the show's editors, right after a moving segment where Ed spoke with a limbless girl he gushed about finding the kids "disarming."

I've not laughed so hard in days.

When The Angel Woos The Clay

This is one of my favourite songs. The lyrics are from an Irish poet named Patrick Kavenagh. The music is a traditional aire. It is one of the most haunting songs in existence, and I love it almost without parallel. If you can grab a listen to any version, I recommend that you do.

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay -
O I loved too much and by such and such is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that's known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone
And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say.
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay -
When the angel woos the clay he'd lose his wings at the dawn of day.

The Beauty of Poetry

Here the tragically beautiful
And the beautifully tragic
Drift through this night
In a last quest for magic


Or so says the liner notes for the Trans Siberain Orchestra's "The Lost Christmas Eve"

Now, I don't know about you but my first thought was "Oh please", followed shortly thereafter by "somebody didn't sit at the jocks'n'cheers table in High School!"

I love poetry as much as the next guy but there is such a good thing as knowing when to stay away from an abcb quatrain and go for the limerick jugular.

Just because you put a rhyme
In the front of your album from time to time
Doesn't make you smarty
Or extra "arty"
Or less of a ripoff of Steamroller, Mannheim

Friday Thoughts--or why I will lose more Baptist Points

These are random and scattered, because the cogent post I was going to write hours ago disappeared in the face of a 6 hour Comcast outage. The fact that I know how long an internet outage lasted in the dead of night is either sad or scary--depending. Sorry to those of you who hate my "Larry King" posts. I'm too busy looking for a half-dozen spouses.

Sunday Illustrations
I draw pictures during the special music and offeratory at church. I even have a sketch notebook for this. I realise that this strikes most people as wrong because it appears that I'm not paying attention. Here's the thing. For some odd reason after 30 years of churchgoing I've discovered that if there is a musical number I pay much better attention if I'm either drawing or coloring. Something about the way my mind is wired. If i'm just sitting there listening prayerfully/meditatively I catch myself thinking about such dramatic things as which batch of laundry to do first on Monday or whether Atlanta Bread or Baja Fresh will win the Sunday Lunch War. I wonder why I'm not man enough to put a hunk of freezer-burned meat in the crockpot like mothers of yesteryear and instead subject my spouse to the last-minuteness of restaurant food. I start to wonder why it's okay for Sunday to be a day of rest but still require people in their early twenties to work long enough to make me a burrito or sandwich. Some Orthodox Jews have someone called a Shabbos Goy who will come by and light fires, bring meals and give rides on their Sabbath. We seem to have turned the world onto this practice and made our young adults and recently-pardoned felons do this work for us. I hate that I can't go to Chick-Fil-T (my husband eats there enough that we've honorarily changed the name) on Sunday but I admire their closed-on-Sundayness.

Do you see how busy and random my head is?!? Do you see why it is better for me to do a line-drawing of my dogs chasing a squirrel? That's automatic enough that it takes the part of my brain that wanders and sets it to something so that the other part of my mind can focus on the music. I'm too old for dry cheerios in tupperware.

Things Aren't Always As Bad As You Think They're Gonna Be
I'm absent-minded and my brain easily gets off-track. (See above) A while back I realised that my driver's license expired at the end of May, 2005. Since the end of May was safely nestled in the same distant past as the 2004 elections, my first bra and the time when I still had hope for LOST I knew I was in trouble. I don't drive that often because we have only one car and usually end up going placed together because we love each other's company. So I didn't rush right out and do the responsible adult thing. I did the cowardly recovering-alcoholic-good-thing-I-don't-drink-often thing (ETA: I'm not a recovering alcoholic, but I've known plenty and this is the type of thing those particular AA members do with great regularity) and ignored the problem, such ignorance spiced with moments of terror at the thought of going to the DMV. Patti and Selma BOTH would have my hide for sure. "Some days we don't let the line move at all. We call those Weekdays." I fear the DMV.
Yesterday I cracked under pressure and made Tim haul my irresponsible butt into the Drivers' Hut for the day of judgment. We were there a grand total of 23 minutes. There are three computer kiosks where you can enter all your info and charge your credit card. They then take your picture, hand you your license and send you home. It felt anticlimactic. Tim said "let there be a lesson in it for you." I still think having a baby and getting published aren't going to be as easy.

The Perils of Not Drinking Often
I rarely drink. A year ago I was working in one of the most stressful jobs known to man. Unlike brain surgery, being an Executive Assistant in a poorly run company doesn't allow for a suitable amount of control and leaves one feeling helpless, hopeless, and ready to find new uses for a Swingline. So we were at a restaurant and I saw a "chocolate martini" on the menu. I figured--hey. Chocolate AND liquor! What better way to salve my wounds?! So I ordered my first mixed drink in many many moons and enjoyed it. Kind of.
A couple of weeks and senseless corporate decisions later I decided that I wanted another chocolate martini, even though it surely meant that in a few days' time I'd be living under the Belle Meade Kroger. So I looked up the ingredients on the internet and bought the necessary stuff. All the ingredients say "two parts X, one part Y" and so forth. So after a bad day I made my drink according to the recipe.
I felt like crap. Tim came home from his bike ride and saw me laying on the couch. I thought I had the flu. The next day as we discussed my really bad headache he informed me that the standard portion of Vodka is NOT 8 oz. What do I know? I thought that was about how big a beer was. All the recipes didn't say what a "part" was. So, I've never made a drink again.

Four Legs Good, Two Kids--Better

I've been in church for most of my life. There were a few years there in my twenties when I got burnt out on Orders of Worship and thought God was experienced just as easily by sleeping in on Sunday Mornings. (It is a day of rest...) Now that I'm old enough to be President, I'm back in church and growing more active in my involvement. Hey, with incentives like Porn Sunday, who can pass it up?

With churches in all 50 States it seems that there are a few unavoidable constants. Jello at carry-ins, the passing of offering plates and the unwritten hierarchy of social acceptance. I've talked to people in all denominations--Southern Baptist and Church of Christ, what else is there?--and had my suspicions confirmed. I present to you the following Chart of Church Member Celebrity Value. See where you score!

First Time Visitor +10
Visting Family of Current Member +1
Female Single Adult under 25 +2
Male Single Adult under 25 +5
Male Single Adult under 25 not trying to break into the music business +30
Female Single Adult over 25 +1
Male Single Adult over 25 not living with his parents or delivering pizza as sole source of income +20
Married couple, no children +5
Married couple with children +25

Once you have your base score, you can alter it with the following life events:
Get Pregnant the Ordinary Way +2
Get Pregnant Scientifically +5
Adopt a baby of your same racial mix +5
Adopt a baby of a different racial mix +5 for non-Chinese +20 for Chinese
Have Baby +30 (and increase your base score if you initially had no kids.)
Work In The Nursery +5
Work At Other Children's Events +1 per event (take +1 for each day of VBS worked).
Teach Children's Sunday School +2
Sing in the choir in any other city but Nashville +1
Sing in the choir in Nashville +3
Make something homemade for a carry-in +1
Bring a bucket of KFC to a carry-in +5
Bring something from the Kroger Deli to a carry-in -3
Bring your 5 kids and a 2-liter of Big K Cola (only) to a carry-in -6
Take a Short-term Missions trip +5

Katherine: Hovering around a 2 or 3. I keep bringing Kroger Potato Salad.

Eat Me

Everyone who reads this knows by now that I'm a bookworm. What you may not know is that I am an unrepentant foodie. Seriously. There is nothing I enjoy more than well-prepared food. Tim and I are going to the Epcot Food & Wine Festival in the upcoming weeks.

I've been reading the menu and weeping softly in anticipation.

I'm Terrified.

You'll have to visit Andrea at Spleenville to see the nightmare for yourself.

See You Next Tuesday

No. This isn't a Bill Hobbsesque fare thee well. This is me, talking about a really grungy swear word with a perfectly good latin derivation.

Tom (link at right) is my younger brother. He lags behind me by six very long years and moves in a world much different than mine. He has informed me that the title phrase of this post is a very hip new (?) way to say a four-letter slur. Personally, although I hate the word in question I have to say that I fully admire a society creative enough to come up with this twist. How much more creative is this than just saying "The C Word".

Which reminds me...why aren't you all watching Arrested Development? I mean, aside from the fact that it's been preempted by the ghastly (sorry, John H. ) sport of baseball for the next couple of weeks.

Michael, asking his brother to sell the new yacht: "GOB, get rid of the Seaward."

Their mom Lucille, overhearing this last part of the conversation: "I'll leave when I'm good and ready."

It's funny and it's made for TiVo, because you will rewind just to resavour the joke.

UPDATE: I'm so behind the times. This guy has compiled a whole list of Seaward Substitutes. Some of them suck. The rest of them are pretty clever.

Us Womens 'N' Our Monthlies

I just saw a commercial (a rarity in the world of TiVo) for Commander In Chief.

Now, I've never seen the show, so I'm going off the ad, which could be totally misleading.

I just have one question:

Why is the show about a man president and his staff (The West Wing) about rapier-sharp wit, creative problem-solving and cameraderie, while the show about a woman president is about sex and D.C. gossip?

Rex Tells The World My Secret

According to the blognonymous Rex L. Camino, it is undeniably true that I am a bad person. While I love to be slandered in the blogosphere, I cannot deny that I am no fan of Faulkner. I appreciate the man's technical prowess, yet I just don't get into the whole Southern literature thing--blame the 21 years of being a yankee for that.

As far as I'm concerned, Pat Conroy said it best. All Southern literature can be summarised in one sentence:

"On the night the hogs ate Willie, Mama died when she heard what Daddy did to Sister."

Writer's Apathy

I've heard of "writer's block", and I've experienced it plenty of times. I'm a nocturnal author, and so I spend my day hours researching the material I'm going to turn into a more interesting book at night. Usually between 12:30 and 3:00am I'll be pounding away in a thoroughly make-believe world.

During the day I use this blog to post my thoughts on "real" life while I do my best to act interested in the mundane processes of reality.

Oddly enough, I'm not having any problems engaging in the faux world lately, but I'm just not that warmfuzzy on the daytime reality of existence for the last couple of days. (Hence--no blogging). For the record, I don't care about Harriet Miers. I doubt that anyone will overturn Roe in my lifetime and don't particularly care if they do. Karl Rove may have broken the law. Again, I don't care. Have no clue what the best course of action is in Iraq, which is good because no one is beating down my door for instruction in that arena. Likewise, no one is hammering for my solutions to the questions of illegal aliens from Mexico, Indonesia and Mars.

That's why I love America. I love that I'm free to not care. As callous as that sounds, I know I'm not special. So I know that almost everyone spends most of their emotional energy on why their coworkers are idiots, the number of days they have before late fees accrue on the electric bill and how J.J. Abrams is the biggest fic tease in the history of television. When people talk about Capital-F-Freedom they usually evoke images of women voting, intertstate commerce and veterans soluting the flag. Lately I've been enjoying the true spirit of Freedom in its most mundane beauty. The ability to get up, go about my business and not let the ripples on the pond unright my vessel.

Keep Yo' Laws Offa My Jesus

Glen Dean says it best. Fifteen years ago I thought all Libertarians just wanted to sit around and get high without running the risk of the Federal Government seizing their property. Ah. Times have changed. Now the Federal Government is seizing everyone's property if they think a personal home would be of better use as an Orange Julius outlet in the newest mini-mall. Over the last 15 years I've watched my formerly beloved Republican party slide headlong into the greedy trough of big government. And so I've become a Libertarian.

Aren't Libertarians anti-Christian? Not at all. Many of us are openly Christian Libertarians. In short, we (as I often say here) render unto Caeser what is Caeser's and render unto God what is God's. We strongly believe that the best legal refuge of the Church is in smaller government. (You can keep your government-funded Faith Based Initatives, George.)

We believe that the best way to help those in need is through the charity of individuals because too much gets lost in the bureaucracy. And after all, that's what Jesus asks us to do. If you have two coats and the other guy has none--give him one of your coats. That makes much more sense than "if you have two coats and the other guy has none, the government will forcibly take half of one of your coats. By the time it assembles a new coat from all the halves of coats it's taken, it will take approximately 9 coat halves to make one whole new coat for the needy guy. That way everyone gets a coat and the government can live off the choice pieces of fabric it carves from each forcible contribution."

So, yeah. Sorry, Ronald Reagan. I wouldn't have left the party if it hadn't already left me.

Vanity Google Can Change Your Dreams

So, I heard that I was near the top of the search list for "Fingerprint-free erections". So I tried to google that term.

The #1 sponsored link was for something called Long Dong Penis.

I have been laughing nonstop for eight minutes. I will no longer be writing. I will now form a band for the sole purpose of using that name.

No one would ever give Long Dong Penis second billing beneath a puppet show.

BadaBing--It's Business, Not Personal, Sonny

NBC aired Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Saga in 1978. Coppola recut his two masterpieces to tell the story in a chronological order. My parents, placing their trust in the NBC censor's superior bowdlerizing skills, let me watch it. For about a year afterward I wanted to be Italian, wanted to be Catholic, wanted to shoot various mean little girls in the head. That was a big year for me, because I was also into sharks and The Sound of Music. I checked Italian language records out of the Public Library and learned how to ask for aspirin for my wife's headache from any druggist in Italy. I configured a wonderful Mittyland where I was a heroic Italian nun who fought sharks for the Catholic church. I don't quite know what danger sharks posed to Catholocism, but my fantastic alter ego was always there to protect the Pope on one of his numerous ill-fated boating missions. I kind of grew out of all that (last year some time), but I still have every word of both classic films committed to memory. The only remembrances I have of Part III involve the wretched gnocchi-crafting scene, Pacino's "pull me back in" and Mary's ridiculous death scene. I've hated Winona Ryder ever since. I know deep down that at the end of Lost In Translation Bill Murray whispers thusly to Scarlett whatever: "Now that Sofia has proven herself, we're all gonna find Winona and torture her for bowing out of Godfather III" . Scarlett smiles the same smile I would have at the thought of roughing up Sticky Fingers.

Ah. But it's business. Not personal. Everyone knows that phrase. I'm sure that pretty much anyone has said it at one time or another, usually joking. I thought a lot about it yesterday, when I reached my Bush-bashing threshold, because it's one of the things that I just don't understand about the political climate of 2005. So few people seem to realize that it is not personal. I'm sure that the comments section hereunder will be filled with the standard claims of personal injury at the hand of politicians. I understand and agree that politics does have vastly echoing repercussions in the personal lives of everyone. I don't dispute that. I know there are people who've lost their TennCare, people who've lost their sons in the desert. I realise that these are very real ramifications of our political system.

What I fail to understand is why everyone feels the need to constantly attack those who are NOT politicians. All the other 'little guys' on the other side, who made the best choice they could given the information available at the time. Sure, you may think that Bush has made nothing but hideous mincemeat of our society. You may think that Bredesen has put the State of Tennessee into a woodchipper. All that's fine and dandy. But the line is crossed and the discourse lost when we start belittling the people who voted for these men. When we extend the missteps and the failures we perceive in politicians to those who voted for them, the most basic discussions are instantly adversarial. Any hope of a valid solution is lost in the murk of slinging mud. And that is what makes politics in 2005 so tiresome.

In the books and films, Michael Corleone devolves from a much-loved family man and war hero into a lone savage. He starts by only killing for business, but then every personal thing is slowly covered by the business umbrella. He dies alone on a park bench. He's killed everyone that ever got close. He let all the business get personal.

Piglet Is A Right Wee Bastard!

Well, apparently Piglet has been banned from a British Municipal office because he offends some Muslims.

Good. That servile twit has it coming. He greviously wronged me many years ago on a trip to Walt Disney World and has been at the top of my hit list ever since. It was one of those goofy stunts a la the garden gnome in Amelie, where you take pictures of an innocuous household item in exotic locales. We had our bear, Xander. There were pictures of Xander on the monorail, Xander in the tub in our room, etc. We wanted a picture of Xander with Piglet in Epcot, but Piglet said no. Because Xander had an "Old Navy" baseball cap on. I know that Piglet is pure and sanctified and would never dream of shilling for a corporate brand. Not our Piglet, beloved of both the collected works of A.A. Milne and revisionist Disney animation. So, instead of sullying his paws, he backed away and left me very upset. You can read the whole dust-up here on UseNet. The confrontation was apparently matter for discussion among the staff cast members at the park, also. Leave it to me to stir up controversy over even the dumbest stuff. Even though the "boy" in question was 30 at the time...

So, now the Great Society wishes us to band together to Free Piglet. Well, since I have great respect for Kathy Shaidle, I suppose I will. But I am going on record as saying that the little oinker owes me.

Boobie THON!

It's October, and that means it's time for the annual BoobieThon.

They come in all shapes and sizes. Interesting.

Initial link is work-safe. Subsequent links--not so much.

Wherein I Continue To Prove To The Public That I'm Odd

Aunt B. gives us her five top idiosyncracies and says to play along. So I will. I was gonna do it over there in comments but I knew it would be far too long.

1. Food In Bathrooms
I cannot stand to eat or drink anything that has been near a bathroom, in a bathroom or came from the bathroom. The easiest way for you to score the last piece of cake in the house is to walk it past the bathroom door. I will be physically unable to even think about touching it without vomiting. That episode of Seinfeld where Kramer puts a garbage disposal in his shower to cook food? I've been known to cry when people start talking about it.

2. Antiques
Aunt B. has a fear of mirrors. I can go her one better. Any antiques of any kind give me the flat-out willies. I just imagine some poor dead person sitting in the chair and fall to pieces. I grew up in a city that had a lot of historical significance for American Indians and American Settlers. We were forever going on field trips to places that were chocabloc wth antiques. I could just picture dead babies in trundle beds and dead Indians eating their dinners in the Fort at the trestle tables. I thought I was the only person in the world with this problem until Dwight Yoakam's character copped to it in Sling Blade

3. People In Bathrooms
I can't go to the bathroom with people watching me. I have to always put something on top of the magazines with celebrities staring at you. Praise God for car companies who are willing to advertise on the backs of Entertainment Weekly and Bicycle Monthly. Tom Cruise may leer smolderingly, but it keeps things from progressing as they should.


I know that we're supposed to do five, and it's not that I can't think of two more. It's that I can't narrow it down. Perhaps another day I shall pick the winners. As it stands now, I'm ashamed enough of the three that I did post. But vain enough that I won't take them down. Ah, America!

Full Disclosure

It appears that after several months of hard detective work, Chris D. Jackson has come to what initially appears to be an astonishing conclusion:

From all the posts I have read of her's, she is clearly a member of the right wing blog community.

Alas, the truth is uncovered!

Just to avoid future misunderstandings, and to make sure that everyone is fully aware of the brass arseload of bias I'm packing, I've put together an oversimplified diagram.



I would hate to have anyone happily agreeing with me for weeks under the false impression that I was on their side, only to have the awful truth come out later when they see me lighting candles under a photo of Ronald Reagan or Jesse Ventura.

P.S. Don't let Sarcastro or Kleinheider tell you differently. They are cowards who don't want a hot woman in the Libertarian party.

P.P.S. Truth is, I was an unreconstructed Lowell-ist for many years but his untimely departure from the spectrum left a gaping hole that only Penn Jillette could fill.

Arrested Developments

There is no better free entertainment than to spend a couple of hours walking though model homes. Tim and I drove out to Providence today to tour the idealised, fingerprint free erections on display from various builders. It appears that chocolate brown and goldenrod are the two interior paint colors of choice, and people do the most interesting things with fake food and empty soda bottles.

I love walking through these places. It's a shot of hope and a chance to project a different life for yourself--a chance to envision a life where your kitchen is clean, save for the shining bowl of out-of-season fruits on the counter. If you're single, the model home is a stage for your visions of romping on the master suite bed with Mr. Right, of carnal knowledge in the garden tub. If you're newly married, all of the bedrooms decorated with ballet shoes and Burt's Baby Bee accessories are surely waiting for the perfect little twopointfivers that you envision with your hair and his eyes. The kitchen becomes the arena where you will perform the magic of perfect Thanksgiving dinners and group pasta nights. If you've been married for a bit there's always that small voice in the back of your head when you walk through a single-story house. "If I were not in this relationship it wouldn't be all bad. I could live here, in this chocolate brown room with hardwood floors and a cathedral ceiling. The gang could come over and watch the game/Sex & the City on the TV and we'd drink beer/margaritas." It's not that you want a divorce--it's not that you aren't pleased with your mate. It's just the reassurance that if things were different maybe here, in this place with the giant antique plates mysteriously affixed to the wall, those things of life could still be okay.

Of course, it's probably all the smell of the new paint and the stuff they use on the carpets. If you lived here, the mysterious plates would come down to be replaced with $10.00 prints from All Posters and framed photos of your parents. The Pier One rugs would have dog vomit stains on them and the hardwood would always be smudged with your skanky toeprints. Life is life, no matter where you live it. But for a few minutes you can be a real live Sim and dream a different one.

Hunting for Books

Today is library day.

The day I officially suck off the public teat. Having added a few drops of milk to that teat I have no qualms about this. Thing is, I'm about to add a few drops more because I owe some fines. Most of the books I have checked out currently are for research, which means they end up in odd places all over the house. I don't always feel like sitting ramrod straight at my desk when reading about Medeval Economy in the British Isles or the Real Story Behind the West Memphis Three. But darned if I can remember where all of these books have ended up. And it's a three-story house. So, I have to check under the bed in the nursery-that-isn't-a-nursery; behind the fountain in the living room; through the various stacks beside the bed; in all three bathrooms. Every time I go to the library I forget to take back a book because I've left it in a bathroom. Today I will make sure that doesn't happen. I promise.

If you are the person who is waiting for Great Stone Circles, I'm sorry. I'll have it back to the mothership shortly.