burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

Over lunch today, I got to catch up with Nicole a bit, which was unexpected and lovely.  I said I've been busy with church stuff (she was kinda like, "duh") and I started to tell the story of preaching last Wednesday, and I started it with relevant background info of Outreach Minister, two-year term ending, and Nicole jumped ahead to, "So are you applying for the position?"
me: "No-- I-- No-- They're not even sure they're going to be renewing the position, and-- no-- I-- no--."

At the end of the day, I had a Scott.  I told him that I'm gonna be preaching in two weeks.  (Yeah, I was gonna facebook event/evite tonight, but I think that's gonna be deferred until tomorrow so I can get to bed.)  And I told him about preaching last Wednesday -- 'cause I didn't get to when we hung out on Friday.  Somewhere in the conversation, Scott said something like, "When you decide to do this for real, it's gonna be awesome."  I double flipped him off -- and then told him about my conversation with Nicole.  He told me about the reference letter he's going to write for me when I apply to seminary -- and I told him that if I'm ever having a really miserable low self-esteem period I'm going to call him up and demand that he write me that letter ... 'cause yeah, boy thinks I am brilliant.

I am dissatisfied with my Easter 2C sermon, but I feel okay enough about it to post it and move on.  (And as I was writing this post, Ava left a nice comment on the facebook post of it, so that's nice.  And I do think there's good stuff in the sermon, I just think it needs more work.)  And I'm excited about putting together an Easter 4C sermon thanks to a wealth of ideas from cadenzamuse :)  Laura Ruth told me that she drew on my last Wednesday's Reflection for her Easter 2C sermon -- "And Still I Rise: A Question of Resurrection" -- and isn't community grand, and I thought of that when I was thanking Denzi for all of her ideas.

( gym )

I wrote up my IP notes from Monday and posted about bodies and then worked on actually feedbacking and writing up recs for fics.  (I have not updated since last August!  I was like, "I am going to make productive use of my time if it kills me."  It did not so much actually happen, though I got a little bit done.)  I also bookmarked/read a few items off my Google Reader.

I ate lunch outside (it was cloudy, humid, and breezy, which all together was actually a good combination) with Nithya and Cait.  I was gonna maybe go to the retirement party for a woman I barely know in the building next door later in the afternoon, but I ended up staying around my desk to do some actual work-related things.

I went to IP section tonight, figuring I was in the area anyway and it wasn't a big deal to just get dinner at Qdoba [sidebar: my recent ability to just not-eat, esp. around dinnertime concerns me] and hang out and possibly folks would bring up interesting questions/issues.  Yeah, I fell asleep during section (which says more about the amount of sleep I've been getting than about the quality of section).

(former)RA-Nicole called me midway through and I totes left class to take the call (even though it literally didn't occur to me what she would be calling about).  Cailin had left her a voicemail yesterday and she just got it today and was totally freaking out.  She apologized for not asking after me at all and said she'd call later and actually catch up on me (I assured her that was fine).

I thought about coming home via Porter to pick up Fig Newtons and cereal but opted to just go straight home.  I have laundry in the dryer, and I think I'm going to go to bed.

I went to ILL the two books CWM is using for its Study on Race and White Privilege [Galilean Journey and Understanding and Dismantling Racism: The Twenty-First Century Challenge to White America] and had to go to HOLLIS because MLN/VirtCat didn't have them.  What up?  I also wanted to get Suzanne Kamata's Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering and nowhere had it.  I poked around her GoodReads profile some and ended up adding like a bajillion books to my To-Read.  Yes, I am still being a little self-destructively avoidant at work.  But I totally get Good Liberal cookies because the list of books I added is like a 50books_poc list.

I hung out at SOM/West before church group tonight and read much of the January 2009 issue of Essence 'cause it had a cover story on Barack Obama.  Some bits were a bit too "he's the Messiah" in tone for my taste, but there were some bits I really liked -- and which I'll have to go back to the library and copy down because I can't find them on the website.

***

"Joy Sadhana is a daily practice in the observation of joy."
-mylittleredgirl [more info]

Do not be afraid, I am with you
I have called you each by name
Come and follow Me
I will bring you home
I love you and you are mine
     -"You Are Mine" (David Haas)

Five good things about today:
1. Flecks of snow blowing off the snowbanks as I walked in to work.
2. A gazillion interesting books to read at some time in the future (and mostly not from the white U.S. perspective).
3. Yummy banana bread with chocolate chips.
4. Surprise bonus Nicole.  (Which, okay, contributed to my not getting to ever talk to B -- she bumped into him at lunch, so until a phone call interrupted she was chatting with him -- but it was nice to talk to her.)
5. The watercooler in my kitchenette actually dispenses water again.

Three things I did well today:
1. ( gym )
2. I emailed folks about a piece of information that got left out of a newsletter.
3. I talked through my response to something such that I ended up posting a response that said what I needed it to without being meaner than it needed to be.
4. I helped prepare dinner and serve Sean at group tonight (he's really sick, so he wanted to to minimize how much he touched anything).
5. I regret not actually going through with my impulse to ask a friend "are you okay?" but I got validated that I was in fact reading that correctly that something was wrong.

Two things I am looking forward to (doing [better]) tomorrow:
["anything that you're looking forward to, that means you're facing tomorrow with joy, not trepidation," as Ari says]
1. Picking up the CWM books from Harvard libraries.
2. Having a relaxing early-to-bed evening.

I woke up at 7:06 this morning.  Ideally I'm out of the house about ten minutes prior to that.  So in the interest of getting a shower and stuff, no gym for me today.  (Jonah and I were doing dinner at Veggie Planet between work and class, so after work wasn't a gym option.)

Veggie Planet = still tasty.  I got a tofu peanut curry rice dish.  And cinnamon apple tea.

And then we went to TeaLuxe and got their seasonal hot chocolate + chai.  (On the counter woman's recommendation, I got Tra Que Chai -- cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon.  He got Kashmiri Chai, which smelled very minty.)

While waiting to cross JFK St. back to the T, a woman informed us about a demonstration or something.  I didn't take a flyer, but as we began to cross the street she told us about how millions of children are being drugged and it's a hoax.  I said, "I would argue, but I have to go to class."  She said that she knew this was true because she took care of her five-and-a-half-year-old grandson and they wanted to medicate him and she proved that he didn't need it.  I said that while some children are medicated when they don't need it, that medication is arguably overprescribed, I don't think all children are overmedicated.  She said most are, millions of children -- and poor children, not children of the upper-middle-class.  (I appreciated that at least she had an eye toward the systemically disadvantaged and wasn't just complaining about yuppies who really wanted toys more than children and should never have been allowed to breed in the first place.)  So I fulfilled my day's quota of engaging strangers in discussion.  (Possibly I need a new tag for this?)

***

Class was wicked dull.  I literally pulled out my copy of James Fraser's Between Church and State to read partway through.

The prof talked about trade and stuff and how one factor is negotiating and how when you intensely demand something, the supplier can demand a very high price (hence why it's a bad idea to fall in love).  I wanted to say, "But as long as the buyer thinks the good is worth the price paid, then both sides are still gaining.  Yes you want to claim as much of the pie as possible, but as long as you're still within the ZOPA you're coming out ahead."  But I mean, he knew that -- we were talking about comparative advantage and stuff, and how specialization and trade make both parties better off even if one party gains more than the other party does.

He talked about free trade and Cuba and suggested that no one's really gaining from the trade sanctions and SmartStudent said, "You underestimate the importance of Florida in every election [...] Cuban expats."

Someone asked if the supply and demand curves ever actually look like curves rather than just straight lines.  The prof said yes, that this model is an oversimplification, said, "People are not straight."  And we all laughed, him included.  He rephrased it as, "People do not behave linearly all the time."

***

Jessie wrote:

I have these moments with pretty much anyone I know even reasonably well, but the more I know someone, the more I find myself picking out those things. Moments where I think "would X still be X if she didn't do this thing that I can't even quite describe?" (Would Elizabeth be Elizabeth without talking to strangers about Marx and religion on the T? Would Emi be Emi without the way she blows her nose in the morning?)

I thought of this when I got cc-ed on an email from Nicole to B:

I had forgotten the true extent of my dorkiness and find myself leaping out of bed every morning, though still overwhelmed (in a good way) with all the things I can learn in just one day... On that note, I also have some readings to send you/Sara that reminded me of MONV, and which might help frame the discussion next semester.

Yes, she is no longer working here and is still talking about helping improve B's course.  (I think one reason the both of us worked well together is that we're both crazy like that.)

***

soundingsea is talking about writercon 2009 again, and now that my summer is over I'm actually in the mindset to be excited about that.

Next year is totally going to be the year of long weekend trips.

Reconciling Ministries Network's 10th Convocation is scheduled for Labor Day Weekend (September 4-7, 2009) at the YMCA of the Rockies at Estes Park, Colorado.

I feel confident that WriterCon will not be scheduled for Labor Day weekend, so yay for not having to choose between the queer Methodists and fandom.

I remain undecided as to muskratjamboree.  Last year I felt like I should go because it's local, but from who signed up it felt like it was gonna be DueSouthCon or something -- which is fine, but which has no appeal for me.  Hanging out with local fen would of course be cool, but I feel like I would be better served hanging out with them in other contexts.  And "a slash-oriented comm con" doesn't especially help sell me either.
    Muskrat Jamboree 2009! A multi-fandom, slash-oriented con! April 3rd and 4th, 2009!
    Registration will go live on October 25th, 2008 and will be limited to 140 people. The registration fee will be $80.00 US.

***

email forward from my mom:

MY LIVING WILL

Last night, my friend and I were sitting in the living room and I said to her, 'I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug.'

She got up, unplugged the Computer, and threw out my wine.

She's such a bitch

***

I thought JennyO was kidding when she referred to Lindsay Lohan as a a baby queer, but apparently not.  (And from the same Jenpost, Ckat Aiken is probably officially gay.)

I did a serious revamp of my UserInfo.  Pithy and therefore hopefully new-user friendly, though it feels fantastically boring to me.  [Ari will sympathize with the fact that I can't figure out how to tag this entry for this piece of content -- some variation on "self: lj: userinfo"?  Oh, this reminds me, though, that I was gonna look up Semagic and tagging.]  ( Semagic and tagging: problems and solutions )

I opted not to sign up for the EDS class, 'cause I realized that between ASL and CAUMC I would be attending all of three evenings worth of class.

***

Jessica and Bianca had to have seen my dogtag this morning when we were talking, and they didn't say anything about it.  (I had been concerned that it would clash with the professional image we're supposed to be presenting -- not that I think queer != professional, but that imprinted dog tags != professional.)

Mary Alice loved my dogtag (and knew immediately that it was re: "Don't ask, don't tell").  I had lovely chatting with her and Greg.

Greg said that on Sunday(?) he and his wife got out at Arlington and walked around and going up either Boylston or Newbury, they passed a church with a big pride banner and she was confused and, recalling our conversation, Greg explained that yes there are a few churches that are accepting/affirming of gay people.  I said there are in fact a lot.

Nicole and I chatted briefly about our weekends and she said she volunteered at an AIDS clinic Saturday morning and got invited to have a spot on the float (but it was like 11am and she had things to do that day, so she declined, though she did end up seeing part of the parade).  When I mentioned how my usual Sunday is church-laundry-church, she said, "You're all-church all-the-time, you're going straight to heaven -- you're on the fast lane."  I said a lot of it is queer church, so probably there are plenty of people who don't think I'm going straight to heaven :)

***

I had a headache all day, so I was gonna do the elliptical 'cause that's low-impact, but at 5:30 they were all in use.  The students are supposed to be all gone; how is this possible?  So I did the treadmill at 5mph, and it felt like a comfortable jogging pace, but I was so not up for it.  A couple times I took it down to 4mph for ten or twenty seconds of fast walking, but at 14min I ultimately quit.  I've done the half hour multiple times before, so I was telling myself that I could do it, but pushing myself that much just wasn't happening.  An elliptical had opened up, so I did that for 5min, but then I quit that, too.  Going home and taking drugs and lying down seemed the healthiest thing I could do for myself.

I took a quick shower first, obviously, and they've replaced the old scale where you move the weight bars with a digital one, so on a whim I stepped on it.  ( I am not at all unhealthy, but I worry that talking about weight numbers could be triggery, hence cutting. )

The self-indulgent fic discussion has prompted me to go back to a fic I started at least 2 years ago.  I was going to discuss her an issue I was having with it (trying to balance/weave two different ... moods? themes? ... in the same fic and also worry that I would be repeating myself treating one of the themes in another fic I'm interested in) but I managed to resolve it, so you're spared that.  I also got actual ideas about moving the story from Point A to Point B (which is good since the distance between A and B in this case involves serious relationship development).

-----

Alyssa asked about the piles of books that have been sitting on my back desk since I got in Tuesday morning.  (Prof.B. asked me to type up a bibliography for someone.)
me: The joke is that I have to read them all.
Amanda: You wanted some light summer reading.
me: And I figured I'd better start in the spring so I could get through them all.

-----

We had lunch early, so we caught the end of The View (because what else is on at 11:45am on a weekday even with cable?).  They had this whole presentation of summer shoes [for women, natch].  We griped about impracticality, and Eric posited that feet are ugly.  I chose not to tell him about Joss' Summer Glau foot fetish as I am still working on getting him into Firefly.

-----

From the Registrar a few weeks ago:
"Your exam will open at 3 PM on Thursday, April 27 and close at 4 PM on Tuesday, May 2."

From: [RA]
Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2006 2:53 PM
Subject: Exam Posted!

( Read more... )

-----

I bumped into Michelle on the way out and talked to her for a while and then just didn't have the energy/motivation to hurry to the T.  I actually only missed my commuter rail by like a minute.  Oh well.  The next one boarded only about a half an hour later, so while I didn't get to be Lutheran I did get to work on the above mentioned fic some more.  Jumps to shmoopiness kept feeling out-of-character, so I keep staying in dark places with it, which is interesting since one of my earlier thoughts today was scrapping the dark theme.  I definitely think keeping it was a good idea because it actually moves the story along whereas without it it's basically a lot of poetry reading [as in, one character reading poetry to the other, not me writing poetry for inclusion/usage in the fic], with the only plot being the Part 2 which I'm still working out.

-----

Today's "Who needs context?" item: my "stain-resistant soul," thanks to dinner conversation with my parents.

-----

"There are few poems here in which the fault or failure of the human creature is not chillingly apparent."
    -John Frederick Nims in his introduction to the Andrew Hudgins collection Saints & Strangers

While I was helping her with stuff this morning, RA thanked me for coming in at 8:30 today, convenient and all.  I shrugged and said it was more like twenty minutes of and wasn't so much on purpose as just the way the trains run, commenting that when I get a place in the city I'll be here like 5 minutes of; cue sad face from her.

Looking for pens, I ended up cleaning up [read: organizing] the supply closet and later also did the cabinets under the fax machine and also my desk.  *wins*

A guy came in looking for Alyssa, said he was a friend of hers, wanted to e-mail her some files off a memory stick, but she had gone to lunch so I had to decide whether he was shady or not.  I tend to be fairly trusting and would have let him use my computer, but the conversation was enjoyable, and then he noticed my wall and said, "Is that a Serenity calendar?  Where'd you get that?"  So I explained it was fanmade and we talked about the movie, and the series, and the comics (which he didn't know existed) and yeah, good people.  Shared fannishness is love.

Delivery guy came by and asked, "Who services [first name last name of a professor]?"  ...

I kept up with all the stuff I needed to and even had time to do some fic reading/feedbacking.

I get a lot of junkmail on my fannish e-mail address, and recently the Sender names have been pretty awesome:

+ flack harrow
+ outer lines
+ housed tabla

And the winning Subject line (from "Vonda Blevins"): cheers to your healthy life

We watched DS9 at lunch today, though Eric says it's his least favorite of the series (save Enterprise, of course) and he dislikes syndication anyhow 'cause (he says) they cut out 1-5 minutes of showtime to fit in more advertising.  And then I Googled it 'cause it was a two-parter ("Homefront"/"Paradise Lost"  Episodes 4.10 & 11, first aired January 1 & 8, 1996).

And we saw an ad for CSI and I thought I heard Grissom call someone a "damn punk."  I was very confused thinking it was an ad for tomorrow's ep but no, it was CSI: Weekdays on Spike TV.  First Weekends on UPN and now this?  CSI is turning into Law and Order.  (Also: Please note that we were watching Spike TV because channels like Cartoon Network were not coming in.  The Weather Channel was not coming in.  wtf?)

One of the people who's been working on scheduling something with Prof.B. through me said in an e-mail today, "Thanks for carrying the water on this."  Okay, that phrase is a definite new one on me.

Though it's all relative.  I used the phrase "geek out" around RA today and she loved it and said she was totally going to steal it and I was like, "I can't even remember when I first heard that phrase."

She is still working on reorganizing Prof.B.'s office and I'm gonna end up helping and she said her plan was definitely open to change and if I had any input I should please share because I seemed "naturally organized" -- whereas she has to work at it.  I can't speak for her own organizational inclinations -- she always seems fairly together to me -- but yeah, organized is like how I live.

I have my website back.  Turns out I had renewed hosting but not domain registration.  Not that anyone told me I had to renew domain registration.  *sighs*  So relieved to have it back.  May even do a brief first-of-the-month update.  Sleep, what? [Edit: Website updated. Now I have guilt that I am considering going to bed without having fully read/responded to LJ comments/ my flist. And I've already decided definitively that posting thinky thoughts about today's DS9 and mari4212's post is a tomorrow project. But, completionist though I am, sleep is good. It is near 11pm as I write this. Especially because tomorrow night is new CSI and Without a Trace, so I'll already be getting to bed late for sure tomorrow night. Le sigh.]