Skip to main content

It's been over a week of my silence. I'm sorry about that. Been very busy with a lot of stuff I'm just not gonna go into here. Life is good, I'm alive, things are well. And aren't I descriptive? I'm typing this on my sister's laptop, because I just spent half my weekend here. Headed home in an hour or two after a shower and deciding which sweater to steal from her for the week. Next Sunday, we'll be headed to Santa Ana for Patchwork, where Tara will be peddling her beautiful wares! I foresee a whole lot of Christmas shopping going down. Hopefully by then I'll have my paychecks all sorted out (forgot to cancel direct deposit when I closed my F&M account last week. oops!). Meanwhile, I'll be working absent-mindedly, writing furiously and guiltily, and trying to be faithful to everyone else in the meantime.

Being faithful to people can be complicated. How do you choose between two opposing forces? How to you respect lines honestly and healthily drawn? How do you measure the worth of an individual in increments of time? Or productivity? Or the depth and/or length of a conversation? I'm not trying to be complicated here. Once upon a time, I thought I was a good friend. I thought I was faithful and thorough. I don't know if I've changed or just figured myself out better. I'm also not looking for affirmation. Just musing on growing up - what it means to know yourself and others better, and how increased understanding lends new responsibility.

(oh, and that is a whole blog post on its own - how understanding a person, whether you ask for that understanding or not, makes you responsible for them. why is this? i don't know. but it makes me think that those who understand human beings best should all be monks - to devote themselves to prayer for the world. how else will you have the time to fulfill your responsibility to your own human understanding?)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

because you were all wondering what I'm writing my dissertation on, here's a brief synopsis of my 'research context': When James Macpherson published his Fragments of Ancient Poetry in 1760, he went to great lengths to make the Fragments appear to be authentic remains of an ancient, heroic oral tradition. His reasons for this were largely political, and as such, influenced the content of the epics themselves. As an attempt to establish a particularly Scottish identity, the poems were quite effective. However, to do so required both a simplification and a manipulation of traditional mythology. Stripped of anagogical significance, the Ossian epics more or less represented an Enlightenment version of history, tradition, and mythic heritage. The stories themselves were changed by their very purpose and in turn changed the manner of representing myth in future narratives. Moreover, the emphasis on the Ossian epics as authentic tales from the past, as ‘fragments,’ served...

birthday wishlist

Enough people have asked me what I want for my birthday, that I have decided to post a wishlist on this blog. I know that twenty-six is long past the age of getting significant presents, but I also know that there are some people who will buy me things anyway. So I might as well. DVDs and music seem to be the fallback for me. It's difficult to get me something I don't like in this arena - but a list might be helpful. I guess. So I need to replace my copy of The Village, allegedly stolen by druggies. This is a must. I keep forgetting, and then regretting that I don't have it. I don't have any film adaptations of Dickens novels - and no, I don't want Nicholas Nickleby. I like Our Mutual Friend and David Copperfield best. I would love some classic Hitchcock films. I'm not interested in any of the ones with Carey Grant. But I like all of the others. Except maybe the Birds. And I simply love How to Steal a Million with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. I don'...

Book of the Week: The Hunger Games

If Cynthia Voigt had written science fiction, it probably would have looked something like The Hunger Games . In Suzanne Collins's newest novel, we meet a protagonist who seems remarkably familiar. Like Voigt's heroines, we understand her story because she seems so much like ourselves - no matter how strenuous or bizarre the circumstances, we feel certain our story would be the same. We, too, would have those resources, that practicality, that certain sensitivity that separates us from the masses. I don't say this critically - it is the book's strongest feature that it identifies with every one of its readers and says 'this could be your story.' It is not just its portrayal of Katniss Everdeen, the novel's heroine, that is familiar. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic North American nation, Panem. It is a country held together by fear - a fear instilled by the capitol into each of its twelve districts and maintained by a yearly event called the Hunge...