Happy 3/5 Birthday to Harriet!!!

I just finished up the third section of Harriet. My mind is beginning to turn to the style and content of the book though I still need to keep trucking with the basic framework of characters and plot. Feels good to be done. I thought I had another couple weeks, but suddenly the last words were being said and the curtain fell. It has potential. I'm really pleased.

It's the little things

I always wanted an electric toothbrush. To my eyes it was the height of luxury to have the toothbrush brush your teeth for you. Most Christmases I buy the kids one of those cute cartoon character versions, but I never bought one for me, until a month ago, when Kurt went with me to Sam's. A joint trip allows me to run ideas and non-budgeted purchases by him. I jokingly pointed out the adult motorized toothbrushes and he put it in the cart. Sometimes these things are better in one's imagination than they are in reality--not so the toothbrush. I love the luxury taking my time to allow each tooth their spin. What other stuff did I want as a kid?

My mother called wanting to know what I wanted for Christmas. I knew exactly what I wanted, right down to the personalization. There are certain splurges I struggle to fit into the budget and a fancy pen is one of them. A Christmas or two ago Mom and Dad bought me an ivory Levenger Truewriter. I asked that it be inscribed, Truth Alone, because I intended to (and still do) use it to do my creative writing. It's a great reminder to stick with what I know and what I know is true. I wanted another pen to use for my reading. I'm filling a commonplace book with all the great stuff I'm pulling out of the Great Books. That's a lot of writing and while I do my best to write "Truth Alone," I know that most of the time it's just my best guess. I think it's fair to assume that that was truth for these others who pushed us forward one idea at a time, so I asked for an obsidian, true wrtier engraved "Best Guess."

I'm not a big music person. I enjoy it, but I don't spend money on it--etc, so when Kurt passed down his ipod I couldn't find a purpose for it. I put some German tapes on it for the trip to Munich, but mostly it laid around looking for a reason to exist. Now, I've found it. Dance music is one of my loves, so I've put all my favorite songs that cause spontaneous dancing on that little white stick. It should be great for my workouts at the Aquatic Center, but it doesn't matter it lifts my mood and makes chores into workouts.

would've, should've

He could have come to Martha's with a generous save the date.
He could have come to Eden before it was too late.

He could have come to Westboro Baptist, the ultimate picket sign.
He could have rewound Sarah, wiping away the grime.

He could have replaced Bono as the leader of the band.
He could have floated down the Nile and skipped the Promised Land

He came between beginnings, our own Babe Truth.
He comes in the here and now to be our Eternal Proof.
He will come in glory, the great Judge Ruth

Would have? Should have? I dare not judge thee.
Praise the truncated trinity.

Postcard from the Center

See Chest

be not a Freud of kill her poetry
poets play Dickinson's lute
constructing an Eye Full Tower

In an Iliad frame of mind

Tonight we went out to see Sanctum. I was giving James Cameron an opportunity to redeem himself after Avatar. Redeem himself after an amazingly creative blockbuster hit? Yeah, you heard right. Put Myst and Halo in a blender and there you go. Terrific success--not much of a surprise really.
I was beginning to be beautifully bored, tearing apart the plot he wrote backwards, when Achilles murdered Patroclus. The hero character kept up the killing people for their own good right up to himself, though his son had to help him speed things up toward the end. The plot came from ancient literature but to call it derivative would sink all of us. It was interesting to hear ancient perspectives given full credence, but the longing for the "heroic" masculine "virtues" would have been more interesting if they were off to Mars. Now that's a great place to suffocate for exploration. Haven't we spent enough time in the cave?
And that's another thing. I've been trying to work some Freud in to my reading here and there. He livened up my beautiful boredom with many interesting ideas of his own. I'm still a little too fundamentalist to speak them out loud, but let's say I've never spent such a long time contemplating how intimidating, mysterious, and somewhat deadly women are to men or at least to James Cameron.
As always the film is beautiful and isn't that enough? maybe.

2 dollar cheat sheet

I set aside my Christian Prayer because I became frustrated that I just don't understand its internal logic. Completely dependent on the St. Joseph's Guide, I enjoyed the experience much the way I suppose a first-time skydiver enjoys the ride with his mentor strapped to his back. I was there. I did it, but I didn't really do that much. There was also the sneaky suspicion that the Guide, thorough as it is, took for granted that I knew a lot more than I do. It didn't help that the book I bought to explain Christian Prayer added still other procedures I didn't know. All that frustration stopped me from remembering why I was praying like this in the first place.
I was praying the hours because I loved it. The prayers and scriptures weave themselves into my day and slowly into my life. My life felt rejuvenated and healed. I should have known all my mounting pride was the real problem with Christian Prayer/Liturgy of the Hours. It's hard for me to be the newby. As a Baptist I not only had the theology down, I knew people. I'm used to being the smarty-pants. Now I stumble over the alternative Easter and Advent and Lent stuff. I'm still learning when I add these items in and when I leave them out. In any case the trail had gone so cold that I was surprised when Father Dan said I should get back to work on Christian Prayer. He showed me an amazing app that would do all the work for me if I had an ipad or an iphone. Who knew liturgical prayer would stir up such covetousness? There is no room in the budget for that at the moment, so I humbled myself and sent off for my old instructor--St. Joseph's Guide. It's only 2 bucks and it's changing my life--one sort of successful attempt at a time.