13 posts tagged “work”

I have been having trouble lately with my attitude. As i grow older it  would seem that i become more and more self-centered and am motivated more and more by

self-interest.

For instance, my attitude at work sucks live a Hoover vacuum cleaner in a snow drift basically because people bother me. I have perhaps the most meaningless jobs in the entire United States -- i serve food and drink at a University library. My point is this: for over 20 years there has been no food or drink allowed in the library, and it has become necessary at this present time how? The school wanted, mostly, to protect there physical plant and to protect there books. They also had this rule because they had a role in disciplining young scholars. Seriously, think about it--- when you're eating, can you really study? No. Your either doing one or the other. But kids, being typically American, had started to use the net in their rooms to basically plagerize their papers. So they revamped the library, put in about a thousand new computers in the basement, and put in a snack bar. The kids are back at the library -- mostly to check on their Myspace pages and to fuck off with their friends. I rarely see students, even during midterms or finals, in the stacks.

What i am doing in my Library kiosk is a reflection of the total cultural victory of the consumer culture. It has been said that people are most impatient with other people's attributes and behaviors on account of the fact that these are things they don't like about themselves. I often, especially on really nice summer days, contemptuously ask students if they had lost a bet with God to be inside a library on such a beauty of a day. Summers here bring out the freaks, geeks, graduate students, Asians, and townspeople, and i actually am in awe of such a lack that would cause a normal and healthy human being to plop themselves down in front of a computer screen on a summer's day. I love to read, and i still wouldn't be here 90% of the time unless i was being paid. So i start to look at these people like losers, to be pitied or condescended too because they so obviously lack a life. It is their problem, you see...

Unfortunately, this is not true. I get angry with people because they bother me when i am reading or blogging or simply sitting still and resting/thinking. I don't want to have to get up and get them their caffeine or sugar, to pour them hot water or grab them a pastry. I might have some semi-accurate observations in the above paragraphs about the library patrons; however, the truth of the matter is that i just don't like being disturbed or bothered. I hate to admit this, but i'm the one who has the problem. Dammit!

Christian orthodoxy and praxis insists that with faith and God's acceptance come an infilling of God's Spirit into each believer. Jesus said to a people used to farm life that people would be by the fruit they produced. Apple trees produce apples, olive trees olives, etc. The Spirit God sends into the lives of every believer produces specific fruit, like kindness and gentleness and faithfulness and goodness and love and peace and joy and patience and self control. It isn't all that hard to see that i am being a total prick. I am glad that the Christian devotional life has ample opportunity from reflection and repentance...

In other news: My best bud Mike and his wife Denise and kids were here for a couple of days. Hanging with Mike always restores some semblance of sanity for me. The Wife will be performing tonight at the top of the campus center tonight for Jazz in July, and i am certainly looking forward to that. I am also in the middle of the last Harry Potter book in preparation for the Deathly Hallows release coming up on Friday. I was just reading on the net where some guy took pictures of the new book and downloaded them onto the web... I am fortunate that i am such a clueless wonder on the computer, there is no way i could figure out where to find this stuff let alone figure out how to down load it into my computer. I'll just have to wait till Friday with the rest of the world and hope i am never in the position of being able to ever visit that extra special place created just for the guy in hell.

On a lighter note i just bought South Park Season One on DVD and pretty much have been rolling on the floor laughing for the last couple of nights. Anyone get a chance to read South Park and Philosophy?

It may sound strange, and the book cover may look like kinky porn, but one of my favorite authors is British philosopher and atheist John Gray, and his best work by far is Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals.

He is actually an atheist without an ideology, which pretty much places him in a category all his own. He takes atheism to its logical conclusion, which is something i respect:

Today the good life means making full use of science and technology -- without succumbing to the illusion that they can make us free, reasonable, or even sane. It means seeking peace -- without hoping for a world without war. It means cherishing freedom -- in the knowledge  that it is an interval between anarchy and tyranny. The good life is not found in dreams of progress, but in coping with tragic contingencies. We have been reared on religions and philosophies that deny the experience of tragedy. Can we live a life not founded on the consolations of action? Or are we too lax and coarse even to dream of living without them? p.194.

For Gray, the aim of life is not to change the world but it is instead to see it rightly. Gray claims that humans humans are not something special, they are part of the animal kingdom just as any other animal. "Modern Humanism is the faith that thru science humankind can know the truth -- and be set free. But if Darwin's theory is true of natural selection is true this is impossible. The human mind serves evolutionary success, not truth. To think otherwise is to resurrect the pre-Darwinian error (he means Christianity) that humans are different from all other animals" (p. 26).

I completely disagree with him, and he completely disagrees with me. Yet i find his thought and style to be very attractive and his argument irenic; i do not see him as the angry, aggressive, cynical, rationalistic, reductionist, ideologue as when i read Hitchen, Dawkins or 90% of pro atheist blogs right here on Vox.  What can i say? I recommend this book on my newly christened Literary Thursday!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, life is strange because life is good! The Mrs. is happy and challenged by her work, my best friend is moved to New York and is now within traveling distance, and i am very close to beginning to get some work done on the used computer i recently bought. Plus i am averaging about Two Offices a day and sometimes three or four -- it is good to have a regular diet of Scripture and prayer. Of course there is still stress and uncertainty, but what they hell, when won't there be?

I am also almost done with my book on the depression and WW II as part of my research for the beginning of my Kerouac book... it is, after all, literary Thursday!

Last night i went to Danbury CT to see my chiropractor, which was an hour n a half up and back. It was a nice run tho -- the weather has been beautiful here the last two days. Upon my return i found my wife whining about getting fed. It is strange that she seems unable to feed herself; if she hadn't married me i figure the poor woman woulda starved to death years ago.

I watched an old South Park ep last night when i got back, the one with sexual harassment panda, and laughed my ass off all over again.

Isn't politically correct gender and sexual identity laws fascist?
"No."
"Why?"
"Because we don't call it that..."

I love these guys, Stone and Parker, who are hated equally on both extremes of the Right and the Left -- anyone who says anything about the way things really are, even against ideology, will be hated as much as these guys are hated. Ever hear of Camille Paglia? She dared to state the obvious and questioned the assumptions and deeply held presuppositions of the homosexual community. She received what anyone risks who crosses any deeply held political ideology -- Left, Right, Secular or Religious -- that has power because a large group of people are invested in The Idea, a group of people unable to make sense of themselves or of the world around them without The Idea.

I eventually went to The Spoke to catch the Sox high lights and to drink a beer. Most of the gang was there, and the Sox won so everyone was in a good mood. They upped the price of PBR, which makes no sense. Who'd drink that shit if it wasn't cheap? Fifty cents more and i can get a Corona. Thank you God for Mexican beer.

I came home and The Wife was still asleep. I didn't sleep all that well, but i was up and at 'em by 8:30 AM. Work was a long reading session -- i'm almost done with Kennedy and i will be moving on toward Halberstrom's "The 50s." I'm getting some good stuff for the introduction of my book. I took in like $70 today, not even enough to pay my salary. But i could look out at the window and see what a beautiful day i was missing out on -- anyone in the library today lost a bet with God, pure and simple.

I have to be careful. As i advance into middle age i find myself becoming more judgmental and lacking in patience, in tolerance. It would be very easy for me to submerge myself with contempt for my customers, with these people who are so lacking a life, so that they were wanting a coffee on a summer's day, but that would mean being too hard, to proud. I don't know why they are there, and i shouldn't judge like that. Jesus said that blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Humility means that i don't put myself above other, think of myself an my opinions more than i oughtta. I've taken to carrying my prayer beads with me most everywhere, as i need to pray for Christ Jesus, Son of God, to have mercy on me, a sinner.

The Wife picked me up, and while we ate a bucket of KFC we watched "Serenity" on HBO, Joss Whedon's final flight of "Firefly." Damn, the man can write and direct -- sometimes i forget that until his dialogue catches me right between the eyes or thru the heart. I decided to blog while watching an old favorite, "Ghost Dog," and then i'm gonna hit the Spoke again as The Wife has a prior commitment and what the hell, i never like staying in this apartment on my own.

Next couple of days i have off, which is nice. I have the 4Th of July off as well, so i'm taking a personal day on Tuesday. Hopefully by then i will be able to take my powerbook in for a wireless card and maybe even get some more memory, turn this laptop into an actual computer.

More later tonight, perhaps...

 

Watched an interesting movie on HBO yesterday called "Brick." I liked it, although it didn't quite work, Sam Spade attending an American High School and all... I liked the compexity of the plot, and the acting, and the music, but it ultimately failed because it was very unrealistic. Kids would never ever talk or even act or think like that; it made "Dawson's Creek"-speak look like everyday teen speak. I'd recommend it, but the movie is long and ya gotta pay attention.

I wanna extend a big thank you to my pal Chris, who helped me change the password and name back to yours truly. I am very happy about the 'puter now... the only problem is that it messed up my e-mail account and i don't want a iMac account. I have three goals now: to put in a  wireless card, to add a gig of memory, and to eventually get me a Mac adapter.

I worked my very last 6:00 to 2:00 shift for the semester last night, and i feel good. I have today and tomorrow off, and then i work Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The library will be closed Saturday, and probably Monday, if Monday is Memorial Day. Then it will be the summer schedule, which again, fills me with happiness and warmth -- its like sunshine on the inside. Woo Hoo!

I have to talk with Mr. surgeon tomorrow about the knee, and poof, all the internal sunshine is gone... I expect that the Doc is gonna say to lose some weight, which means i'm fucked. Its a catch 22 -- i need to lose some weight, but i can't without the full use of my knee. Shit. But cha never know, right? I may be setting a date tomorrow for a July surgery. Why July? Because The Wife and i are heading to Bonneroo music festival in the middle of June. White Stripes, The Police, Gillian Welsh, Junior Wells, etc.

I have to pay the electric bill today. I have been really into The Drift again since i turned in my papers, and when it comes to shouldering responsibility i automatically go into "tharn," like some stupid rabbit in "Watership Down."  I did go to the local used bookstore and grab a couple of Kerouac books, "Visions of Gerard,"  "Dr. Sax," and "Lonesome Traveller." They are all part of the autobiographical legend Kerouac wrote. I am gonna try to write this book, and actually do some real research. You know, like someone who actually has their shit together.

I am so tired, so close to burnout. I have a incomplete to make up, and i don't care. It would be too easy for me for to sluff it off, delay everything again. When my Mom was dying, she kept trying, albeit in monosylibles, to get back to Massachusetts so that i could finish up my degree. To this day, i wonder what was behind that one -- a true love for me and a desire to see me achieve something, or a way for her to feel better about herself and the past by having a successful son in the classic definition of the word. Maybe it was a mixture of both? It is beyond complex, human motivations, quite unlike actions, which are clear and defining and unambiguous.

I need to get back to some diciplined prayer. I hate missing my Offices and not reading my daily Psalms. The only meaning in this place is love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, patience and self-control. It is so easy to live life for yourself instead of for God and for others. It is natural to see life thru a tunnel vision of hazy self-fulfillment. Sometimes i don't like journaling, or blogging, because of the navel-gazing, the introspection, that habitually comes with it. CS Lewis quit journalling for this very reason...

Oh well, time to pay the bills.

Anyone remember a horrible yet very cool horror movie called Fright Night? The geek, who plays a very sarcastic ironic best friend to the innocent and clueless hero very well, keeps telling the main character that "you're so cool, Brewster" in this high pitched, crackling voice. For the last week or so i've been hearing that exact voice in my head... Remember the last post? Oh yeah. The Wife was late for class (again), and was not only told off by the others in her section (its a vocal performance class) but was also warned by her professor about possibly having to give up leading a section next semester if it happens again. When i did not come to pick her up, she took the bus home (in my defense, she didn't call, but THATS a pretty sad excuse on my part), and when she got home and found me still asleep from my post blog nap, we had an earnest disscussion, a give and take dialogue in which calmer heads did not prevail. However, we did eventually make up (in the biblical sense), and i'd rather fight with her than anyone else. Damn, what is the matter with me that i can't see what's right in front of my face relationship-wise?

Work has been pretty tough lately, the body has been staging it's own protest rallies after work. I am in trouble a bit with my weight again, not in that i am sloppy fat or anything, but in that i seem to have reaquired that cumpulsive eating pattern again in dealing with stress in my life. I thought i'd fast from today through Sunday morning as it is Good Friday and Sunday is Easter, and all i did today was argue with myself in my head about the stuff i wanted to eat. I gotta get a handle on this, not because i want to look a certain way, but because one either has control of one's habits, or they have control of you; not to have control of those habits is a miserable way to live a life.

I have been doing fair with my paper. I have about eleven pages done, and i think i am building a convincing argument from my thesis on Jack Kerouac in the context of the American post-WW II years. The wife read my introduction and she was very encouraging. I do need to get maybe one or two other's opinions, tho. You reading this Macho Mike?

I added a couple of new songs to the ipod -- Martinis and Bikinis by Sam Philips and Audioslave's I Am the Highway and Like A Stone. I know i've said this before, but i really am enjoying the 2nd generation Nano. I listened to my Pink Floyd collection while i was off-loading a bunch of product in the library today. The Gov. was in the library today, posing with the books and pretending to be "The Education Gov. for the state of Massachusetts." They blocked off my normal resupply route while he was filming his commercial, and people who actually work for a living had to disrupt their routines because of this bozo. I am so fucking sick of politics. My first reaction, when he came in, was to think that everthing's messed up because of another dishonest politician. I guess i was a little jaded because all i've been reading in the papers the last couple of days have been about Obama out fundraising Hillary, and knowing they are all rich anyway. I handed in a tax return that said i made 25k for all of last year.

To top off my distaste of politics, my grad class weekly book assignments about the formation of American culture in the 20th century are invaribly is written by some Leftist radical left over in academia from the 60s or the early 70s, and all they have managed to do is piss me off. I took Ms. Scarlett's political test and was a bit to the left of the cross in the graf, so i am not some die hard conservative. I just hate jargon as it reveals such a weakness of argument; i hate an author who is glaringly into will to power mode trying to convince me his/her marginalized minority community speaks for the majority of the nation...

So i'm in a bit of a bad mood tonight... guess i need to hit the sack. Perhaps if i get some sleep i won't be hearing "you're so cool, Brewster" in my head anymore.

These last two days have been the best days for my personal picks ever. Thats right, isaid ever. I have never had all the elite 8 chosen in my brackett before this yesr. Murphy, riding shotgun as usual, is laughing his ass off because my pal didn't get my $20n in on time, and if things go my way i'm outta $600. However, i also realize that this is a sport, and these are games played for entertainment's sake. What close fought, give it everything you've got games that are being played! I have Kansas, Florida, Georgetown, and Memphis for my final four, with Florida and Memphis playing for the championship. Florida should be, could be, the first team to win back to back since Duke. I guess time will tell.

The Wife returned home last night from helping her mom move. I guess i should've done the dishes when she came back. Hallelujah. It was a productive time for her, though, and she said she had a great time.

I went to the Spoke last night to catch the second half of the Florida game with my sports pals. I had a pretty good time, at least until i got home. I also began my Kerouac paper afresh, as after i completed my perspectus assignment i found that i had to rewrite what i had because i had changed my thesis.... i both love and hate writing, as it is challenging and a joy, but i hate the work and the frustration that is also part of the same package.

I also had a better day yesterday spiritually, as i brought my Anglican prayer beads with me to work yesterday (and today). The Jesus prayer is quite the cool prayer, and  praying the beads focus me on someone outside of myself who cares for me personally and deeply. I find that as i am getting older my patience with people gets way shorter, which grieves me as i used to be a very patient man when it came to the behavior and attitudes of others. The combination of working retail and having been a youth pastor seems to have conspired against my one patient disposition, the relentless pettiness and self-interest of People (i still have mucho patience for individual people) have eroded a lot of my good will. It is important to focus in on prayer to the Man who said loving God and others was what the Hebrew Law was all about.

A lot of my attitude can be attributed to do my job. I basically have a meaningless job, dispensing sugar and caffeine, legal addictions, where there never has been a need before (its a library! Since when have food and drink ever been welcomed in a library? They allow it because the library has a 50-50 profit share with university food service. It is, of course, about the money). At least when i worked in the kitchen i was accomplishing something i could take pride in, preparing a good meal for lunch or supper, but here... I suppose i am beginning to have contempt for my customers here because i think so little of selling addictions to people who don't need them. Its like working at the place, Campenstrono (?) where the lemmings all rush into the sea. The first 90 days of the first semester this little joint made a 100 thousand dollars, which is insane. I think its a good thing that i am close to my MA and thus closer to getting the hell outta here. I've never had a job i disliked so much that i was so grateful for. God provided my employment with some of the best benifits that i have ever had. So i will start bringing my beads every day, i suppose, and try to remain grateful and humble.

Meanwhile, Spring break is over as of today, and tomorrow i resume my insane schedule. At least i will be able to attend worship service tomorrow.

I had a pretty wierd day yesterday. The Wife fell getting off public transportation after a class on Wednesday, her feet came out from under her and she fell ass first right on the edge of the bus stair. The next two days were not kind -- she couldn't stand or sit or even lay down. I finally took her to the doc's yesterday; her tailbone ain't broken, its just bruised.

When i was a kid, i remember watching a science film in school about what happens when a star goes nova, and i always wondered what would REALLY happen, as what, they have cameras in space that have caught a star going nova? I don't think so. The destructive energy must be beyond anyone's comprhension. Over the last three days, however, i have seen what a black hole star looks like going supernova... I really haven't had much conversasion, outside of the furballs, as i like my head right where it is and not on an automatic chopping block or in a noose, which is where it ends up if i say anything to The Wife. Something about missing the call to come and pick her up, so she had to take the bus... In my defense, my phone was in my heavy leather jacket, and i didn't hear it go off. I am also not responsible for another person's lack of coordination or for the snow that made the stairs wet. I was veryveryveryveryveryvery sorry that it happened, and apologized all over myself. Meanwhile, i am the strong silent type.

I went to The Spoke last night and had a beer and watch a fight on ESPN 2. It is interesting, sitting in the back of the room and watching the scene as it happens. It struck me last night just how much these bars are scenes of negotiation between two parties, each willing to give up the smallest to gain what they want the most. This of course dooms any relationship from the git go. Love gives without expecting anything in return, and lust always takes. Lust is a terrible thing, something like a blast furnace that burns white hot. The heat is nice, but it consumes for fuel everything that makes life worthwhile here in the void, things like innocence, self-respect, kindness, generosity and integrity. And the object of that lust? It is never attained, its just a shell game. What most people want, love, acceptance, encouragement, and all the rest usually is only attained when taking care of others. Happiness is just a byproduct when someone lives their lives to give their lives away. I didn't see a lot of happy people last night, and the one's i did see revealed glimpses of sharp teeth...

I am heading for work at noon, but before i go i have to  find the paper work on the flight to Nebraska. When i get back i'm gonna have to sweep and vaccum. What a wonderful day i have ahead of me...

My brother called me a few days ago to tell me he thought it would be nice if he, my brother Scott, my Dad and myself could go to the Nebraska Assembly of God District's men retreat together. They had bought me a ticket home for the Fourth of July, if you'll recall, and i had missed my flight so i still have a ticket. Why not use it for this? My birthday is on the 28th of February, and the retreat will be the 1st- 3rd of March. Having the boys all together is usually a good thing, if it is not to drawn out or extended; we get together to long and we semi-revert to the roles we played when we were growing up, which is bad news for me because both my brothers can bench press over 350 lbs and i've come to address them, affectionately, as "sir." Its a tough gig being the oldest.

 Work has been light, which surprises me a bit because last semester it took off running from the first week and had ver few lulls.  My only problem is one that may escape attention because of its consistency, but is behind almost every gripe i have: i work for incompetent people. These people couldn't run a popcicle stand, and i have proof of that every day working in my little coffee kiosk in the university library.

I went to class today and walked away very, very dissatisfied. This is a 655 level grad class, we are supposed to read and discuss two books a week about particular aspects of American culture, and mostly what we do is talk about our opinions and our politics. We read Confederates in the Attic and Dixie Rising, two books written in the mid to late 90s. They were good books, i particularly like Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic.  There are two Danish exchange students, a young lady, and two othe Grad students. These kids are not dumb, they are very, very bright. Its just i have much higher expectations. There was so much, and we talked about so very little of these books.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, The Wife and i rarely see one another. I only have until the 21st of Febr., and i'll be back in the apartment, and hopefully back in the saddle again as well. The Wife had been thinking of going part time, but has found something within to decide to continue full time. It hasn't all been suffer for Jesus, as she has mangaged to spend some quality time shopping for school and the apartment. It is fortunate that most guys who have never been married have no idea just how expensive it is to be married; i believed the myth that "two can live cheaper than one," which is true if they're both guys.

I really don't know what to make of going home, back to the AG campgrounds back in Lexington Nebraska. Those campgrounds are a part of me, as much as the house i grew up in or the schools i attended in Bayard. I was in second grade, eight years old, when i went to kid's camp. I went every year except my sophmore year when i went to a local basketball camp. I went every summer as a couselor while i was in college, and when i youth pastored in nebraska, i attended them there with my groups. I attended youth conventions, family camps, and men's retreats. I have a lot of history there and i a lot of associations...  Gotta write a two page preview of my paper on Kerouac.

I finally, finally, managed to have an eight hour "night" of sleep. Things were very slow last night, due largely to the Super Bowl. I got to watch the first and most of the fourth quarters. I have to say that I was very disappointed about the commercials! For the most part, they sucked like a Hoover vaccum cleaner in the middle of a snow drift. The one i really liked was the one that won contest that anyone could enter for Doritos. I think i heard someone on the news say they shot it on a videao camera, edited it on their Mac, and all for like $50. I liked the game, tho mostly because of the weather. I loved that it was wet and humid and real. Usually the game is turned into a ride in Disney World, artificial and contrived, slick like a magazine add. This was the American showcase, and it was cool that for all our power and technology, we couldn't manage or control the weather and make last night like everyday Disney parade down Mainstreet USA.

Holy crap, but its cold outside. After my shift ended at 2 am, i went out to where i parked the car, and i pretty much froze my balls off walking to the lot where i left it. I woke up and walked the dogs, and i froze all the hair on my face because of the fricking wind chill. Damn, its been cold...

I had a chance to head back to bed, and i took it. The dogs didn't bug me, and i slept for another couple of hours. I get to bed around 2:30. 3:00 am, and the little fur balls are whining for a walk usually at 7:00 am. Sigh. I have to hit the Smith College library this afternoon and check out a book they have on reserve library called "Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves." The only problem with taking my graduate history classes is the strong revisionist bias of many of my Professors. I am reading three books for the class, i have to lead a 20 minute disscussion on public history: Lies Across America, and a book about the early 20th century pagentry movement and how they attempted to pass down tradition. In Lies, as well as in Standing Soldiers, both authors have a revisionist agenda, which means ideology of one sort or another.

These authors claim that any public history, either monuments, or markers, or museums really have two histories, of when and why they were originally placed, and the history of what they commemorate. I believe there is a third layer, that of the context surrounding the issue of why contemporary historians have engaged public history in the present.

I have no trouble revising markers or museam displays or even monuments that were purposely set up as inacurate or to mislead people. History is very much about facts. America declared her independence from England in July of 1776, Abraham Linclon delivered the Gettysberg Address, etc. However, when marker and monuments are changed, one is ignoring a part of history. Why were these erected? What motivated people in locales to put their own interpretations these monuments and markers? When a snowplow "accidently takes out an offensive historical marker, and it is replaced with an more accurate one, a layer of history is lost, and historical memory is weakened. Instead of taking them down and sweeping them under the rug, why not put up another marker or monument beside the offending one?

I went to worship yesterday and it was one of those Sunday mornings where it was just outright duty to sit and listen. Angels didn't sing, epipnanies did not burst upon the scene, and grown men did not weep. The pastor is beginning a sermon series on the Book of Mark, and in Wedensday night housechurch we will me using NT Wright's The Book Of Mark For Everyone. Mark is my favorite among the Gospels. It is a no hold barred, concise presentation of jesus Messiah, written for a Roman audience. I am looking more and more forward to this semester...

This has been a great week, a week that has been basically down time, rest and recuperation. I have a confession to make: My ambition in life is to be able to read, uninterupted without any responsibilities, forever on a summer day in western Nebraska. Thats it. There is a reason why I like reading Jack Lewis. Jacobs, in describing the end of The Last Battle, wrote:

This conclusion is, of course, a learned Christian's homage to Dante, who also ends his vision of Paradise with the image of a great Book, but far more than that, it is a dream come true of a small boy alone in a house full of books in Belfast, who wanted nothing more than to be set free from all drudgery and responsibility and pain and loss so that he could sit in a window  overlooking the sea, reading the stories he loved hour after hour by the bright calm light of endless day. p. 301

My cherished ambition will never ever happen for me except for when I do experience the bright calm light of endless day, but its a nice day dream to have in the midst of my circumstances here as I walk thru the valley of darkness.

I finished reading Jacobs's Jack Lewis biography, and I really, really liked it a lot. For once there is a biographer that didn't have an agenda, either to saint Jack or to swing a sledgehammer at a human being's feet of clay. In other words, it isn't a biography by Walter Hooper or A. N. Wilson. This approach of Jacobs only makes Jack more special, as it is ordinary people that Jesus saves, not so-called "saints."

I dunno what really to read next. I only have four more days of watching the house and walking these fucking dogs, and everyone said, 'Let my people go!' I have some books that I have bought but haven't read, so I think I'll try to read some of them. Garry Wills has translated Augustine's Confessions, and has wrote four books corresponding to the four critical books of Confessions: Childhood, Memory, Sin, and Conversion. I grabbed each one of these hardcovers up at the B&N bargin table for $4. My only problem is that I'm not really in the mood for that kind of book. It is great -- Wills does an introduction, a commentary with the text as well as at the back of the book, and adds a little something extra in each edition. I guess I'm just gonna have to discipline myself and read.

I took an incomplete in my methods class, so january is gonna be a busy month. I'm also going back to hell to visit my sister-in-law at the end of the month in Indiana. Just thinking about revisiting that godforsaken piece of real estate pretty much just makes me wanna vomit. There are circumstances that just in and of themselves are simply unsurvivable on several levels. We happened to do two in secession there in Indiana. Most of the misery I have experienced in the last five or six years has roots running directly to these experiences. But oh well, I love my SIL.

My next blog will be the usual yadda yadda yadda about the end of the year and the beginning of the new, and all the lists. I think an interesting list might be all the cool things that went to shit in '06.  Hmmmm.... so much happens because that is what happens to anything original in this plastic culture here in 'Merica. Gotta take advantage of the down time.