burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

It's looking like I'll just do Saturday in Northampton this weekend (arrival 10:35am, departure 8:40pm).  Thoughts?  Edit: Looks like I might get to stay into Sunday after all.  Would this be worth it to people? /edit

I have really got to solidify my Europe trip, as I leave in less than a month (!).  ::fails::  I have booked my flight to Nashville, though, and I booked my hotel for there a while ago (though I still need to select workshops).  So I don't totally fail.  Part of the problem is that my trip basically ends on a Wednesday and I can't decide between coming home (and either having a long weekend or going into work just for a day) and going to like Barcelona for a few days.  I think I'm gonna go with Barcelona.

For no reason other than that I wanted distraction, I read musesfool's spn_summergen fic.  I have basically not interest in Supernatural, but I'm glad I read the fic 'cause Sam and Dean go to Sedona, and after the trip to the Southwest I took with my family I get all happy around that topic.  This made me think about going again, and whereas I'm usually inclined to go places on my own, I think I'd actually wanna go with a friend/s for this (I think because I've already been there once, so I would wanna show it off to people, as opposed to how with new stuff I wanna experience it on my own -- though we would definitely hit some stuff that we didn't hit in... whatever year that was).  It occurred to me that you really can't get around the Southwest without a car, and would that actually prompt me to finally learn to drive?  Though if I were going with other people, they could probably drive.

***

I ordered gym shorts from Target, 'cause long pants and working out are not such a good combination, and the first time I wore them I felt really conscious of the fact that my legs are unshaven, but today I didn't really think about it, which made me feel happy and self-confident.

I did the elliptical as per usual and purposely tried to push myself.  I felt like I did a good job of steadily pushing myself throughout the half hour.  I still don't get that endorphin rush, but whatever.

Time:
1mi @ 11:22min
2mi @ 23:02min
2.58mi @ 30min
2.93mi post- 5minute-cooldown

I had enough time after to do some weights and still get to CAUMC on time, but I wasn't feeling up for it.  However, I picked up Smart Girls Do Dumbbells from the library and started reading it, and I haven't even gotten to the part where she actually outlines exercises to do, but I am already in love with the idea of doing this.  (Must add "purchasing light weights" to my To Do List.)

Edit: Oh, and Laura got one of those clip-on pedometers from Target, and I am kind of tempted to get one myself 'cause I would be really interested to see how much walking I do (though it's kind of a silly idea, since I've already plugged my commute in to Gmaps Pedometer, and I don't do a whole lot of walking besides that -- but that's part of the point, isn't it? to see how much walking you actually do, as opposed to how much you feel like you do). /edit

*

I watched a fair amount of the NBC news at the gym.

The top story at 5:30 was: body found outside building in Somerville.  They said off Broadway, but Broadway runs a long way, so that wasn't helpful.  The Globe article says Winter Hill, which is way at the other end of town from me.

Other news:

Tori Spelling became an ordained reverend (they didn't say through which organization, though GoogleNews results tell me it was an online course), and married a a same-sex couple at her chateau.

Lance Bass joins "Hairspray" (Broadway version).  I mention this because I expect neverneverfic will care :)

So i thought i wasn't going to be busy this week, and then i was. I was out for much of Monday (doing things which included visiting the high school and junior high for the last time this school year and finally getting a new battery for my watch) and when i came home i had 2 messages waiting for me. One asking me to work that night, and one asking me to work on Wednesday, though when i called back the Monday night slot was already filled. Before i went to work on Tuesday (already scheduled) i called my grandmother and made plans to spend the day with her on Thursday. And now here i am. Where did my week go?

I have few stories, so mostly you're gonna get copious quotage.

I walked to the high school Monday morning,and passed the house of this nice older woman (Helen Wohler). She asked if i'd graduated. I said i just finished my first year at college. She said she watched me go through (to?) high school. She said she remembered seeing my dad pushing me in the carriage. She asked what i was majoring in. I said English. She said, "Oh, I'll have to watch what I say around you," or something like that, implying that i'd be a writer who would draw heavily on real life. Which, of course, i am. I was giddy and grinning all the way up the street to the high school.

Mrs. Berger (my former art teacher) asked what i was majoring in, and when i said English she said there's so much you can do with that -- publishing, writing, teaching.

Oh how i love people who get it.

I stapled my thumb at work on Tuesday. The stapler was jammed, and as i tried to fix it i accidentally stapled my thumb. Only one leg of the staple went into my thumb, and it didn't go in very far, but still. It hurt like a bitch to try to get out. I wished i had wire cutters or something so i could just cut off the rest of the staple and let the bit in my thumb work itself out because it only hurt when i tried to remove it. Fran suggested running it under cold water, and i was actually able to remove it painlessly while running it under cold water. Woot. I am now much more cautious of staplers.

My dad showed me this from an article ("Suicide syndrome?" by Thomas Farragher) in the April 20, 2002 Boston Globe Magazine:

It is commonly held local wisdom that Norwood, more than any other town in the United States, is a place where local boys marry local girls and settle down in their hometown. Many residents actually believe it is enshrined in the Guinness Book of Records or, alternately, as an answer to an arcane question on a Trivial Pursuit game card.

It isn't true. But it doesn't matter. That belief, familiar to reference librarians at Morrill Memorial Library who have often been asked to confirm it, speaks volumes about the town's self-image.

That upset me, because i was certain i had actually seen the Trivial Pursuit card and have told many people the story. It upsets me to think that i've been spreading inaccurate information.

Reading Marion L. Soards' Scripture & Homosexuality: Biblical Authority and the Church Today, this really hit me:

While Jesus is not reported to have spoken on homosexuality or homosexual behavior, his one recorded statement about human sexuality [referring to his speaking on divorce, Matthew 19:3-8 or Mark 10:2-9] reveals that he understood males and females to be created by God for mutual relations that unite and fulfill both male and female in a (permanent) complementary union.

I looked up the appropriate passage to be sure.

"Haven't you read," he [Jesus] replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' [Genesis 1:27] and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two shall be as one flesh' [Genesis 2:24]? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
-Matthew 19:4-6 (NIV)

Earlier, Soards had stated, "At the heart of Christian faith is the word of God, God's self-revelation. As Christians we believe God's Word incarnate is Jesus Christ." If you say that Jesus was just a product of his time and what he said doesn't really apply to us now is to say that he's not really the incarnation of God's word for all time. You can't just pick and choose what you believe from the Bible without destroying the integrity of the Bible.

This made me sad and really dampened my enthusiasm for researching how the Bible doesn't necessarily condemn homosexuality. If i have to choose between believing in the Bible as God's Word and believing that homosexuality/bisexuality is natural and not a choice or a sin i will discard my faith in the Bible. It makes me sad to think that i would have to do that.

Near the end of the book, he says, "The critic who reads the Bible and rejects its teaching---its view of God, the world, and human existence in the world in relation to God---is a better friend of those who seek to recognize the authoroty of Scripture than are those false friends who claim to love the Bible but labor assiduously to redefine its perspectives." I thought that was interesting.

This makes less sense now that i'm typing it all up, though. Jesus was talking about heterosexual marriage, and divorce. Obviously statements about homosexuality would have no relevance in that context. Just as if i were asking someone about California it would make no sense for that person to to start telling me about New York. In Matthew 19:11-12 (NIV), still talking about divorce, it is written:

Jesus replied, "Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kindgom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."

I remember reading something which talks about eunuchs as homosexuals. I must look that up.

My mom showed me an article ("Why the U.S. Will Always Be Rich" by David Brooks) from the June 9, 2002 New York Times Magazine. It had the usual statistics. ("The average household in America now pulls in about $42,000 a year. The average household headed by someone with a college degree makes $71,400 a year. A professional degree pushes average household income to more than $100,000. If you are, say a member of one of those college-grad households with a family income of around $75,000, you probably make more than 95 percent of the people on this planet.") It also had this statement: "One-sixth of the American population is part of the working poor, earning between $17,000 and $34,000 a year." My mom (the real breadwinner in my family) makes about $34,000 a year. So i'm on the edge of being part of the working poor. Who knew? Granted, we rent and don't have a car, so that cuts down on our expenses, but still. People complain about jobs starting at only $30,000 a year and i think, "I've lived comfortably in a family of four on that much. Supporting only myself on that much money would rock."

My mom also showed me an article ("The Bad News About Barney" by Chava Willig Levy) from the February, 1994 Parents Magazine. The author says that the main problem with Barney is that it encourages denial. I found it a really interesting article.

This (from a Cinescape article) gives me hope for Firefly:

“I love spaceships,” Whedon said. “I love sci-fi. I love hard-science sci-fi. I wanted to do a show without latex. I wanted to come back down to Earth and do a western. I wanted to make STAGECOACH really bad and that was the impetus. [I don’t think] there will be aliens three or four hundred years from now [when FIREFLY is set]. There would just be people, and that’s the point. They’re not smarter, they’re not better. War hasn’t been abolished. Some of them are decent, some of them aren’t. Some are just trying to scrape by after being trodden on by history. … It’s a very low-tech show. It’s a sort of immigrant story, taking from all the cultures we already have and imagining them spread out over a galaxy.”

Skimming yesterday's Bulletin i hit page 4.

More things that make you go hmmm...
For Your Consideration.../ David J. Tuttle
* Did anyone expect that six months after establishing a policy that allowed for the crèche to be placed on the Town Common a display for gay pride would appear? And is it right for the display to have the words 'Norwood Celebrates Gay Pride?' This wording may appear to the casual observer that this is a Town-endorsed display. You have to get very close to read the sign stating that this is a private display.

Oh, things that make me want to spit. I really doubt that the crèches will have big disclaimers. So it's okay to create the impression that Norwood is a Christian town, but not that Norwood supports and affirms its gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered citizens?

And at the bottom of the same page:

Letters To The Editor
Thanks for Gay Pride Week support
To the Editor
The Norwood-Walpole Citizens for All Families is grateful for the opportunity to have presented our Gay Pride 2002 display on Norwood Common during Pride Week.

We are grateful to the many who have expressed their appreciation for the display.

Our intent through this display has been to affirm and support the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered members of our community and their families and friends. We will continue to seek ways to do that.

For the Norwood-Walpole Citizens for All Families.
Kevin Devine
Nichols Street

Beth Goldman
Marion Avenue

Leah O'Leary
Devon Road

Paul Plato
Devon Road

Daniel D.P. Smith
Mountain Avenue

Russell Tanner
Winter Street

At dinner last night my mom told me that for graduation they're gonna get me the complete Buffy on DVD. Squee! That means i can even stop drooling over the Buffy musical DVD from the Tuesday, May 28, 2002, Daily Variety on eBay. Hey, doesn't the library get Variety? Oh, that's a weekly magazine, though; that's different. Damn.

My mom showed us this from the Spring, 2002 issue of Natural New England Magazine:

Don't forget the Madison Boulder!

A visit to the Conway area of New Hampshire can't be complete without taking a look at the Madison Boulder, arguably one of the largest so-called erratic boulders in the U.S.

This is likely the largest rock you've ever seen. It weighs thousands of pounds, extends deep into the ground and it's been there for something like 15,000 years since it dropped out of a fast-metling wall of ice at the end of what is called the Wisconsin Glacial Period. Its surroundings, a rural area just north of Madison which is just south of Conway, have changed considerably over the ages. But the rock has not.

The Madison boulder sits entirely by itself with a single explanatory sign posted by the State of New Hampshire about 100 feet away. The site is a 17-acre property on a small residential road off Route 113 owned by the statue and listed as a "National Natural Landmark." It is marked on most maps including DeLorme's Maine Map page 41, B-9.

The boulder's official statistics are 83 feet long, by 37 feet wide. It rises 23 feet above the ground and projects at least 12 feet below ground. No one has ever been able to weight it accurately, but it is believed to weigh more than 7,500 tons. It consists of what is called Conway granite.

The rock's well-rounded shape and smooth sides indicated that it likely spent many a millennia buried in the ice, constantly subjected to milling and sculpting during movements, according to geologists. Most geologists believe the Madison boulder was transported by the great glaciers down from some point of origin in the White Mountains and then left in a solitary repose what would eventually become known as the town of Madison.

We've been there. My mom's boss has a cottage near Conway and we stay there for a weekend or a week or whatever every summer, and one summer we went to see the boulder. It always makes me think of Spike's line in "Becoming, Part 1": "It's a big rock. I can't wait to tell my friends. They don't have a rock this big." Now i want to find the photograph of all of us in front of the rock and scan it and get someone to make an LJ icon out of it with the Spike quote on it.

I was telling my mom that i've seen most of the Staurt Little movie baby-sitting and it's so not like how i remember the book. I remember the book as being more adult, dark and scary at times, and the movie is very fun and little kiddish, bright primary colors and all. I said i had to reread the book to make sure i was right, which annoyed me because i didn't really like the book when i read it the first time. And then i said i really should watch the movie in its entirety so i can make a full and complete critique. She said i definitely am my father's daughter.

Allison had a sticker saying "I Poke Badgers With Spoons" on her door, and i recently saw an LJ icon with that phrase on it. Something last night made me think of it randomly, and my dad wondered where it had come from. I had Googlesearched a while back but had only come up with personal sites which quoted it and suchlike. That was last night. This morning my dad sent me an e-mail titled I found out whence comes "I poke badgers with spoons." in which he wrote:

Several times I got referred to eddie izzard web sites. He turns out to be an English comedian, I gather edgy, androgynous, and with quite a following. I posted the question on an eddie izzard bulletin board and got a number of responses in no time. The best:

It's part of a routine Eddie does about the Catholic Church and the concept of original sin. (This is in the Show Dress to Kill, which shows up on HBO occasionally.) How hard it must be to go into the confessional and be *original*!

"Forgive me Father for I have sinned, I slept with my neighbor's wife."

"Heard it!" the priest says.

But if you went in there and said "I poked a badger with a spoon," well, the priest probably has not heard that one before! So say 10 Hail Marys and 3 Hello Dollys and off you go...

Oh yes.