"Lucifer, dawn of de morning! I'm gonna, chase you out of Earth"

( neuroticism and crypticness )

***

This afternoon at work, my cell phone rang, and it was an HBS number that I recognized, though it didn't occur to me until afterward that that's 'cause it was my number.  (I do know my number, but it's not like I'm used to seeing it come up on Caller ID.)  In a bad computer-generated voice it was "This is Joss Whedon.  Will you marry me?"  Even without being able to make out the name, I knew it was clearly from Eric (who else knows both my work and cell phone numbers?).  He and Katie came by a couple minutes later to find out if I'd answered it :)  (His computer was being worked on, so he was up next to Katie for a couple hours.)  Apparently this comes from dialpeople.com (via bored.com)

There have been times when I've watched/taped something and come back to the living room later and noticed it was still taping and stop/ejected it.  I didn't check after VMars on Tuesday, though, but when I went to swap out the tape this morning I saw it was already ejected.  It had played to the end.  I put it back in, rewound, and found it had taped NBC.  wtf?  (Yes, I checked and the timer setup was for the channel my tv tells me is CW.)

[The West Wing] 1.10 "In Excelsis Deo"

This episode has been repeatedly prefaced by Mary Alice saying "You're all going to fall in love with Toby."  The best part of this was Eric deadpanning, "I look forward to falling in love with Toby."  [He hasn't been a big fan of Toby.]

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[transcript]

[CAUMC] more directional shifts

Trelawney said that Mike had suggested doing more of a spirituality kind of thing -- which turned out to translate to devotional (Megan pressed for an explanation of what exactly she meant by "spiritual").  She suggested that we alternate weeks, which we were fine with.

Michelle said something like "Try anything once; if you don't like it you can always stop any time."  Trelawney asked where it was from, whereas I just automatically went to a naughty place.  Michelle admitted that it was from one of her favorite movies but that it's also something every (straight) teenage boy has said to a girl at least once in his life.

There were anise cookies and we discussed anise vs. licorice, which led to a discussion of Jelly Bellys, and Michelle mentioned buttered popcorn as an example of not okay, and I called them an "abomination" and then realized perhaps I shouldn't have said that, but some people said it was very appropriate, which pleased me.

We read a "How to have meaningful time with God" bit from Rick Warren (most famously of The Purpose-Driven Life), discussed it a bit, and then had some quiet meditation time (complete with lights off and a center candle).  Afterward, Trelawney asked if people wanted to share, and Michelle shared about some tough stuff she's been going through that I for one didn't know about, and Meredith shared her fear about an upcoming medication change (was actually in tears; Megan and Trelawney went over and hugged her, and Megan rubbed her back and Trelawney held her hand) and I really appreciated that Andrew and Catherine (who came the night we did Esther -- I think I need to do an umbrella tag for the CAUMC small group meetings so I can easily/quickly browse back through them) chose not to share 'cause I was feeling bad that I hadn't shared (like I was being a bad group member purposely holding back).  I had considered mentioning dwelling on stuff as a "Things that have spiritually drained you this week" when we went around, like I considered saying that I was feeling neurotic about something when Trelawney greeted me at the beginning and asked how I was.  Partly I didn't want to get into the complications of it all, and partly....  When I affirmed Meredith's willingness to be open and vulnerable, I said that I tend to do the stubborn Yankee "I can do it myself" thing, and as I said it I thought of how Trelawney (and others) have affirmed my ability to be open about stuff so much, and really I'm a big sharey person, and at least on LiveJournal I'll talk a lot about personal angst, but stuff that I'm having difficulty with... yeah, not so much.

Meredith and Eric both affirmed my boots.  Catherine affirmed bubbly personality for both Michelle and I and also affirmed my earrings (I heart these earrings).

Andrew affirmed my geekiness, citing specifically the way I dig into things -- how I look at tv shows as if they could have meaning, at books as if they do have meaning.  I realized this must have related to the conversation I had with Caroline on our way back from apple-picking about how we watch tv shows.  (Yes I did mention watching with a notebook.)  Michelle said I was never allowed to go post-modernist :)

Megan affirmed the conversation we had over dishes at the end of group last week.  I always forget that we can use anything from.  We hugged afterward and she commented that I was a good hugger, that she'd have to remember that.  I actually felt like I hadn't hugged her as intensely as I do, say, Michelle.  (I tend to try to gauge people.)

Michelle affirmed that I was always right there in the gutter with her -- and I think said some other stuff, too, but that was what stuck out.  And afterward she told me, "I figured it would be inappropriate to say that you have great boobs."  ::loves her like mad::

So many of the affirmations I gave were poorly articulated or backhanded, but no one seemed to take them amiss.  I was also realizing as the night drew to a close that we had all laughed so much, which was really nice.  In my self-affirmation I said I was doing really well but that what I wanted to affirm was just showing up tonight, because I'd been feeling neurotic about something personal -- no crisis, I was sure to state -- and I was feeling a lot calmer about it, that I'd really needed to spend time thinking about something else.  (Afterward, Meredith asked if I was okay, which I really appreciated.)

Leaving the building, Eric asked if I had a ride and I said I was gonna walk.  "You have a walk," he said sagely.

***

I checked my tape when I got in, and it appears that CSI did in fact tape, so that's next on my agenda.

CSI 7.03 "Toe Tags" [2006-10-05]

Interesting structural concept.  I wasn't all that into any of the cases, but it was a nice change of pace to have an episode almost entirely just about the cases.