burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

* It got down into the 60's overnight!  Awesome.

* I am still so happy about Amy's news from yesterday.

* I forgot to mention that on Wednesday, Will told me the Name Sign he'd thought up for me -- a book opening, but with the halves of the book looking like the E sign.  How perfect is that?

* We watched "In God We Trust" (tWW 6.20) today.  I like Vinick a lot.

* Katie read me my Onion horoscope, and it is MADE OF AWESOME.
"You've never really been concerned with the plight of the giant panda, but that was before you found out about panda porn."

* MaryAlice informs me that M&M/Mars backtracked almost immediately on the animal rennet thing.  (Apparently DemocraticUnderground was all over this issue.  Hi, my flist fails at vegetarianism.)  This is especially good as I've been wanting chocolate lots recently.  Possibly a response to stress?  I don't really know.

* fox1013 made "gay patron saint" Katie Heigl icons.
::ponders which icon I could swap out for the next three months::

* Eric informed me that the e-mail from the union titled "Final Ratification Election results" (which I thusly ignored) also had a macroed spreadsheet for calculating your new salary.
The "structural increase" is 2.6%, then there's a "progression increase," so ultimately I get a 5.64% increase.  Whee, money!  (This also makes me feel better about all the money I'll be spending on Europe.)
    I actually almost included the actual numbers of my current salary and my new salary, 'cause it felt natural, but then I felt awkward, like it would be uncomfortable for readers, flaunting how much I make [which is not huge in the grand scheme of things, but with a flist full of students and temp workers....].

* I think this is the third day this week that I've heard bagpipes at Harvard Square on my way to the T.

* Eric texted me: "Theyre opening a qdoba at harvard sq."

* dinner at Firefly

I actually had gaydar for once and pinged my waiter as he came over.  "May I ask where you got your necklace?" conversation confirmed it.
And the fact that I was having dinner by myself meant I got to listen to his repartee with all the other customers.
P.S. He said his name is Randy, which of course I think is unfortunate.  But yes, otherwise, fabulous.

I was sad that they didn't have the white sangria I had passed on last time, but I ordered the red sangria.
When my $13 mushroom crepes arrived I initially felt put out that there was so not enough food to merit that price, but they were really yummy, plus I was still full five hours later, so bravo.

On my way out I noticed a rack of free periodicals, including BayWindows, MetroSource, stuff@night, and some others I didn't recognize/pick up.

* Tom Stoppard's Indian Ink ( Okay, so this part -- the play, and the socializing associated with it -- is actually kinda mediocre. )

***

Oh, and on Thursday, I got a mass e-mail from Sen. Patricia Jehlen (to all the people who had written to her about the amendment), and near the end she writes:

Why not "Let the people vote?"

Many people had asked that we not use parliamentary procedure to delay a vote.  This did not happen.

Many people believed that the vote was on "letting the people vote."  It was not.  It was a vote on the merits of the amendment.  The question before us was, "Not less than one-fourth of all the members elected to the Senate and House of Representatives, in joint session, hereby, declares it to be expedient to alter the Constitution by the adoption of the following Article of Amendment, to the end that it may become part of the Constitution."

Our constitution allows for amendments proposed by the legislature to move forward with majority support in two successive conventions.  But initiative petitions like this one face a lower barrier: they require only a quarter of the legislature to approve.  Still, the framers clearly did not intend the legislature to be a rubber stamp.  (At the end of this letter, I'm adding the Herald's editorial on this topic.)

In fact, since 1919, the legislature has been presented with nine citizen initiative petitions for constitutional amendments.  Of the nine, only three were advanced to the voters by the legislature.

[...]

Yeah, you better believe I'm forwarding that to Joe F.

Amanda and I were on the same Red Line home -- and then both stopping at the library to pick up ILL items.  We chatted for a while and she had made a crockpot of vegetarian soup yesterday and started to invite me over for dinner, but I had CAUMC, so I declined (I would have postponed, but I have to do laundry tomorrow night, and I expect the weekend to be booked up -- I suppose I could have asked about Monday, but I wasn't thinking that far ahead; maybe I'll e-mail her).

We took the escalators up at Davis, and near the top a guy came up all growly "Stay to the right if you're gonna stand."  I had completely zoned and not even registered that we were standing on the left (Stay Right, Pass on the Left is one of my big things, so this is ironic).  I was a little miffed 'cause dude, you're coming home after work, the only connection you would be making from here is the frequent busses, so why the hurry?  But given that inability to grasp Stay Right, Pass on the Left (either on sidewalks or escalators/stairs) is one of my Peeves, I really liked that somebody actually called somebody on it ('cause I always just growl silently, and I suspect I am not alone in that).

*

I went grocery shopping this evening and only saw boxes of individual packets of hot chocolate, no canisters like we get at my parents' house.  What up :(


***

Trelawney's father is still in the hospital, so Megan stepped up and led tonight.  She's taking a Wesley theology class, so she used Wesley & Christian Perfection as her topic.  Since I know next to nothing about Methodism, this was largely new and interesting to me.  Once I sat down after arriving (before dinner) it started to hit me how tired I was -- and I think most all of us were a bit overtired, but it was a really good session, which pleased me especially in the contrast to last week.

We opened with "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling", which Megan said encapsulates Wesley's theology, and then read a series of Bible passages (NRSV) -- the ones Wesley drew on heavily in his creation of this theology.

• Matthew 5:43-48
• 1 John 1:5-10
• 1 John 3:1-14

The obvious paradox is "No one who abides in him sins" (1 John 3:6) and " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." (1 John 1:8-10).  We even get "Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil;; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning" (1 John 3:7b-8a).

We talked about this some -- about how the forgiveness after sin removes the sin.  Then she brought up "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).  I said I'd always understood it as something you're aiming for even though you can't achieve it.  I mean, saying "Try to be a moderately good person" does.  She said that in philosophy, obligation presupposes ability, which makes sense when you point it out.  Wesley really believed that people could become perfect.

I said, "So he definitely doesn't believe in the Calvinist Absolute Depravity, huh?  Total Depravity, rather."  (TULIP had come up in conversation over the weekend)  She said that actually he does, which is fascinating.  She said that his reasoning was: God is always present, and it is because God is always present that we can choose to do right or do wrong -- without God's presence, we would have no choice but to do wrong.  I'm uncomfortable with the idea of Total Depravity, but I do find that a really interesting theology (the It is only by the grace of God that we are able to choose to do right, though it does not mean that we will always do so).

She said Wesley's favorite metaphor for God was a physician or therapist.

I forget how it came up, but she also mentioned Wesley's idea of the faith of the servant (Jews, Muslims) versus the faith of the son (who obeys the laws because they love God) -- which is obviously problematic, though definitely interesting.

She said that his idea of Christian perfection was like walking up a down escalator -- that stopping is equivalent to backsliding (you can't stop moving forward).

In my Affirmation, I told Megan that this is the kind of thing that makes me want to be a div student ('cause I had literally been thinking that during the discussion).  She had talked about Augustine and the church fathers, both of which reminded me of sk8eeyore and her (course) readings etc., and thinking of her and the classes she takes I added, "Though I could probably do without the pastoral care classes."  Megan stage-whispered in response, "M.T.S."  Recalling the conversation I had with Nicole over the summer, I feel like I should create a tag for this imaginary div school plan :)

After dishes, Sue and Mike both complimented me on my blouse.  I was wearing my blue flowered blouse 'cause it was gonna be high near 69F and also 'cause I'm running out of options what with overdue laundry (though I really have better options than I had expected).  The last time I wore this I think Alyssa complimented me on it.  I don't wear it often because I feel like it's not a great shirt, but apparently I may be in the minority on this.  When Eric saw me this morning, he commented on how it's unusual for me, that I'm usually wearing "black... or solid colors."  Yeah, solid colors; I almost never wear black shirts 'cause I'm almost always wearing black pants.

***

Oh, Grey's Anatomy.  I don't actually watch the show but have watched enough to know what people are talking about and keep somewhat abreast of current storyline events because I have jennyo and fox1013 on Track, which ignores cut-tags (and polls -- like when you get responses to your entries e-mailed to you).

From musesfool: "This one is less with the funny and more with the disappointment: more on the Isaiah Washington-Patrick Dempsey choke-a-thon, which makes me respect Isaiah Washington a lot less. This is why I generally wish to know nothing about actors. "

via fox1013: one of the cast officially Comes Out [which link won't display in Firefox for me, weirdly; I pasted it into IE and it worked fine]

***

P.S. If you're gonna comment and don't have an LJ account, could you please sign your name?  Thanks.  I usually assume it's my dad (whom it usually is, and who usually signs his initials) but it isn't always, and then I get confused.

***

Wow.  All my housemates are home and awake.  This hasn't happened in possibly over a week.  OriginalRoomie came home and my door was open and she said, "You do exist!" and I replied, "As do you."