Category Archives: Reading

How do you *think* when you’re tired?

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You know how, when people are explaining dreams, they say your brain never stops working?

Well, I am currently sleep-deprived (most half of it my fault), and my brain is starting to act like an Australian Shepard/Border collie mix tied to a kennel with a four-foot chain (if you’d read as many breed reviews as I have in the last week you’d have a deeper appreciation for the analogy).

Today was library day with my mom. She comes over every Thursday morning to do stuff with the kids. I wanted to pick up The Overload Syndrome, that I started reading months ago (even quoted it in an early blog post). They couldn’t find it, so I picked up a few dog books instead.

Ended up zoning my way through most of Mutts: America’s Dogs this afternoon, which is a surprisingly well-written exploration of how dog breeds present when combined without human direction.

I plan to do a whole post of excerpts, in a day or so (if I think of it and simultaneously have time), just because the analogies were so fun (only example I can think of off the top of my head: Golden retriever + Collie= Valley Girl marries Forest Gump, good natured, all-around good citizen, intelligence hit-or-miss; something like that).

I can’t remember ever laughing so hard reading a dog book.

My 3-year-old kept asking what was so funny, and how do do you explain (even to a somewhat precocious almost-4-year-old) how original these metaphors are. She’d look at the b&w pix illustrating the book and try to act like she understood why they were that funny. A little sad really. Children want so much to be like their parents…. Continue reading »

Thought and poem of the day

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Totally like whatever, you know?
By Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com

In case you hadn’t noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you’re talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you’re saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)’s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren’t, like, questions? You know?

Declarative sentences – so-called
because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true
as opposed to other things which were, like, not –
have been infected by a totally hip
and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
Like, don’t think I’m uncool just because I’ve noticed this;
this is just like the word on the street, you know?
It’s like what I’ve heard?
I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
I’m just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?

What has happened to our conviction?
Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
Have they been, like, chopped down
with the rest of the rain forest?
Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
Has society become so, like, totally . . .
I mean absolutely . . . You know?
That we’ve just gotten to the point where it’s just, like . . .
whatever!

And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness
is just a clever sort of . . . thing
to disguise the fact that we’ve become
the most aggressively inarticulate generation
to come along since . . .
you know, a long, long time ago!

I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.

(Reprinted with blanket permission)

“Imaginary” good and evil

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From Phillip Yancy: (though most of it isn’t his, I got it from his article).

Simone Weil said imaginary evil, such as that portrayed in books, television shows, and movies, “is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”

This, I have learned, is one of the hardest things about writing (and reading too). It falls into the same category as a discussion I heard/read somewhere about how much easier it is to maintain your image if you are an “evil” leader, than if you are a “good” leader.

The argument goes: For the former, everything you do reinforces your image– who you are (Even the “good” you may choose to do sets your people on edge, because everybody’s wondering what’s really going on, or when the other shoe will drop.); while, for the latter, no matter what you do, someone will be unhappy, and you will lose your reputation of “goodness.”

Most people today call Jesus a “good teacher” (if nothing more), and leave it at that (“How can anyone have a problem with a man going around telling everyone to love each other?”). But, other writers have pointed out, most people in Jesus’s day had very strong feelings about him. And not all of those positive.

~~~

Getting back to the original quote, I’ve always wondered how best to make Good and Right as complex and alive as all the bad that must inevitably be in a good story.

I think it was my husband that pointed out one element of this difficulty: Everyone has encountered evil. Many of them intense evil. Far fewer have noticed a good on that scale.

I’m not saying it isn’t there (though I can think of several cases where even I, on the outside, can’t see it), but good does not usually impress itself so unignorably on the individual as evil does.

The Blogger’s creed?

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I’ve seen this written or referred to on four or five different blogs, so I’ll just credit the original writer. (Okay, also as cited by JollyBlogger.)

I am the sort of man who writes because he has made progress, and who makes progress by writing.
— Augustine, Epistle 143.2-3

I cannot say that I am any sort of man. But for me, part of progress is processing, and processing is done by writing, so it’s kinds of the same thing.

What’s so bad about a crutch?

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More from Kreeft’s The Angel and the Ants.

…But it is a stronger answer to say that faith is not a hypothesis at all. It is more like a crutch. People used to accuse religion of being a crutch. The answer is: Yes. That’s exactly what it is. What’s more necessary for a cripple than a crutch? And if you don’t think you are a cripple, you must have been on a long vacation from the real world for the past few decades.

From the chapter Some Common Christian Sense about Suffering

Let’s see, now what do I do.

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Last night was 23-days since my Grandmother died. Time keeps crunching along. I finally picked up a novel again. Inkheart. (I first read it a few months ago.)  And it felt like chicken soup.

Should that be embarrassing?

It was familiar, it whet my appetite and satisfied it too. A completely different “flavor” than the first time I read it. I wasn’t too impressed with the beginning chapters before, but they had the context of the whole story this time, and I was able to appreciate the author’s efforts to give them more meaning.

Tried a little too hard, maybe, but it was okay this time.

For the first time in more than 3 weeks I thought I might return to my own work.
Three weeks is a long time to wonder what you’ll do next.

Had to Copy this over here

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When I laugh as hard as I did, I can’t not-share.

This is from Mental multivitamin, and she has all the correct credits there.

Dorothy Parker was born in New Jersey. Challenged to use the word horticulture in a sentence, Parker, a literary figure known for her “instant wit and cruel humour,” once quipped:

You can drag a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.

I was in fits. Of course, it might not have been quite that funny if I’d read it before I should have been in bed. But I laughed again this morning, so it’s still pretty good.

Better than I thought

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I added it up today, and I guess I do read an hour (or more) to my kids most days. One more thing from my wish-list. Pretty cool.

And (small hallelujah) Jay’s agreed I can start looking for a dog in the spring. Specifically on my birthday. That will give us more time for deciding just what we’re looking for, and praying to find just the right one. And for Elisha to get bigger.

And if I can find an EOW (every-other-week) babysitter for Monday mornings I’ll be able to take a piano class at the U. (One woman has already agreed to do EOW, so I just have to find an alternate.) I figure the pressure of weekly lessons will be good for encouraging more consistent progress; I’ve been treading water.

I was debating between this and voice lessons for a while there, then found I have to be somewhat proficient in piano as a prereq. for voice (I have to be able to teach and drill myself on my own). So that solved that dilemma in a hurry.

So now what am I?

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“When a child loses his parent, they [sic] are called an orphan. When a spouse loses her or his partner, they [sic] are called a widow or widower. When parents lose their child, there isn’t a word to describe them.”

–President Ronald Regan

 

Words are powerful. Having a word describe where you are gives you something of a handle. A connection to your culture (if you will) acknowledging you exist by identifying you. Allowing you to identify yourself and identify with others of the same name. The same category.

When there is not a word, when “there are no words,” someone like me is left fumbling in the darkness. Looking for a foothold, trying to figure out where I (should) stand.

I have had three grandparents die now. (Technically that leaves one parent an orphan now; or is that word only used for children? I’ve always wondered.) Each time my emotion/response and sense of loss was very different. I’ve sometimes wished for an identifying word I could use for myself. I wish for a way to say, “This one was particularly devastating/impacting/significant.”

I haven’t found it yet.

“Good” is the enemy of “Best”

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I’ve almost made up my mind not to try out for this season’s FLOT production. I’ve been praying about whether it is appropriate to do this (Sound of Music. Something I know, even!), and keep flopping back and forth.

And then I found this quote; kind-of felt confirmed my reluctance: “We [must] say ‘no’ not only to those things which are wrong and sinful, but to things that are pleasant, profitable, and good which would hinder and clog our grand duties and our chief work.”

It is footnoted, but then the footnote says “Source Unknown,” which I found amusing.

My “grand duties and chief work” right now do not (I believe) include singing for the community at large. I have a much smaller selected audience.

…And maybe if I don’t go, some other young woman will have an opportunity that will mean more to her than it will for me… I like that idea. I’ll pray for her.