Two Completely Unrelated Items

Librarians look like muppets.












Is there a deeper meaning behind this revelation?


The Pope is having a seminar on evolution.

Of course, everyone is concerned that this will further the divide between science and faith. But doesn't it take faith to believe anything about the origins of life? I can't really "believe" in anything that happened before there were people. The whole "if God were alone in the universe and a tree fell" sort of thing. When I think of origins, I think of Discovery Channel simulations, and who can really believe in those?

Resumes, D.H. Lawrence, Dumas, and Dr. Seuss

Right now I'm avoiding sending in my resume. I hate resumes, and I always feel like an imposter when I send them out. All those things I put on the paper--degrees, awards, memberships, languages--aren't me, they were the products of time and chance.

I've finished Women in Love. At first it is tempting to be caught up in the speech, the conversations, and even the actions. There are so many quotable quotes in the beginning, when there is a host of characters, all feeling each other out with dialogue. I don't have the book with me, but so many specific quotes one can rally behind--they seem so revolutionary. Then you realize that except for a few observations, that Gudrun will always be a mistress and Ursula a wife, for example, talk is almost meaningless. Even action is only symbolic of the essential characters of each individual. In the end, the setting is stark and there are only five real characters--perhaps only three. Ursula and Birkin have found closure, albeit that Birkin still feels something lacking. But the triangle of Gudrun, her new lover (whatz his face), and Gerald nuke it out until the very end in a battle of wills and essential purposes.


I tried to start Count of Monte Cristo, but found it didn't sit well after Lawrence. Not that there's anything wrong with it--just not a good combination. So I've been trying to neutralize the atmosphere by reading a study of Dr. Seuss.

Dr. Seuss is actually a controversial figure. On the one hand, his language is inventive, he doesn't condescend to children, and most people like nonsense. On the other hand, his lingual "creativity" is seen by many as a perversion of standard English, his political messages (in the Lorax, the Sneeches, and the Butter Battle Book), are seen by many as too simplistic for such complex subject matter, and his poems are denounced as mere limericks. What do we think?

Things about Ann Arbor that make me happy

The weather is mossy damp right now, but in a month it will be Fall.

I can walk along the river (in my backyard) to the lake (where canoes are for rent).

I have a beautiful pool and fitness room (well, I share them with several hundred other people in my apartment complex).

There is a cafe with coffee, and a convenience store with ice cream, on the ground floor.

September 18, Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Historian, is coming to Shaman Drum Bookshop!

Exacto Knives and My Passing Lane Obsession

Well, oddly enough, I spent the day using an exacto knife at work. I, the child who wasn't allowed to use a steak knife until she was 12. Not because I was violent, mind you, but because I might cut myself (accidentally). My brother could wield a full machete at 5, so I took perverse delight when he nearly cut his toe off in the banana patch one Christmas Eve. I don't think I ever did "arts and crafts" or "scissors skills" as a child. My mother was too kind to inflict such horrors on her left-handed daughter. She was even apologetic about the whole handwriting thing.

Today I followed a pickup truck home from Ann Arbor that stayed in the fast lane THE WHOLE WAY. I wasn't too upset, because he was going about a mile per hour faster than I. But he had a line of traffic behind him, and he would SLOW DOWN when he was passing another car (hence the reason he stayed in my line of vision). I know I'm obsessed with this. But I don't understand. Why?

Poor Me

I'm in serious pain. My head and my throat hurt because the construction on the roof of the library is creating dust that is filtering down into Special Collections, despite the fact that they closed our ventilation system to prevent this from happening. Libraries, in fact, can be very dangerous places. One of my co-workers sliced her fingernail open with an exacto knife while "mylaring" a book today.

The muscles of my back are also in serious spasms. Probable cause was the moving I did on Monday for a professor. I was helping a high school football team carry boxes of books up and down stairs into a UHaul. The professor kept reminding me that I was an "old woman" by comparison. I didn't believe her until the next day.

Does anyone have any suggestions for sore muscles?

No Man's Woman

OK--I know a lot of people won't like this song. I wouldn't recommend it if:

a. You ardently believe that marriage is the most blessed state for everyone.

b. You would be offended by references to a "Spirit" (at least, in this song, she refers to Him as "He." Of course, if she is referring to God, then it would be sacreligious to say she "forgives Him a million times." So maybe she's talking about the ghost of Haile Selassie. Yeah, let's just go with that).

c. You have a phobia about dreadlocks.

I just thought it was cool that you could actually put music videos directly on your blog. And I like this song. Judge me if you want :-) Or blame Emma.

The Da Vinci Code

So I just went to see the Da Vinci Code today. My motivation was threefold. First, it was $2 at the second-run theatre. I am cheap for the very good reason that I am broke.

Second, I didn't want to waste my time reading the book. I'd glanced over the first few pages and, like Left Behind, seemed to have all the linguistic complexity and character development of See Spot Run. See, I'm not against Christian fiction per se, just the 80% of all fiction that is complete trash.

Third, I was eager to defy the "boycott" of the film by the Christian community. My motivation for this, in turn, was also threefold (I AM a Trinitarian, afterall). First, 0n principle, I disagree with anything that is propagated by mass email forwardings (except anti-government conspiracy theories. And, on principle, I believe in all of them). Second, I am naturally defiant. Third, and seriously, I think the big stink that Catholics (and evangelicals) have raised has given Dan Brown too much credibility. It gives the impression that there is something to his arguments (if you want to call them that). There isn't.

So, yes, it is as stupid as everyone said it was. The dumbest theory, and really the one on which the whole movie hinged, was that a triangle is the ancient symbol for "male" and the inverted triangle that for "female." Thus, pentagrams, pyramids, and triangular spaces in paintings represent the Holy Grail, who is actually Mary Magdalen, the wife of Jesus. That's logic.

The appeal of the movie is the same as the appeal of UFOs--the spooky music, dark figures, indecipherable symbols appeal to our desire for the Numinous (I assume most of you know what C.S. Lewis had to say on the subject). Many of the scenes took place in Churches. Yet although he played on the Mystery of religion, Brown ultimately tried, in a preachy yet subjective way, to discount the supernatural in the end. You can't have it both ways, Mr. Brown.

Today...

I bought gas for $2.65 a gallon! This small miracle occurred in a Marathon station at the intersection of Holland-Sylvania and Dorr. Isn't that great? (I am ignoring the fact that three years ago it was well under $2.00 a gallon. DON'T remind me).

P.S. I don't want to know if they have inferior gas. I don't even want to know, and I don't care. Someday if/when I'm rich I'll buy premium.

Actually, being an ostrich is a good way to avoid high blood pressure. They say 80% of doctor visits are stress-related. Maybe if I stop reading the news I can lay off my stress pills altogether and start drinking coffee again.

To survive modern life, one almost needs to be a combination of a gold fish and an ostrich. GOLDRICH? OST FISH?

Eucharist Quiz

You scored as Zwingli. You are Ulrich Zwingli. You believe that bread and wine are mere symbols of the absent Jesus. You believe in interpreting Scripture reasonably. Zwingli 88% Calvin 75% Luther 56% Catholic 44% Unitarian 0% Eucharistic theology created with QuizFarm.com

Surprise, surprise! Baptist and Reformed theologies dominate my understanding of Communion.

Requiescat in Pace Domini

Frank Hooper

1922 - 2006

Grandpa's Webpage

Right now my life, outside of work, is caught up in taking care of Grandpa. One of my jobs is maintaining a webpage for his friends and family. It is different than maintaining my own blog, because I have to post content from other family members (my mom writes dictates most of the posts--I have a hard time speaking the language), and consider how an entirely different age group will react to the layout! I can't help thinking that it's good practice in usability design.

The Illusion of Predictability

I am not a patient person. The predictability of life is a burden, and I don't really believe in surprises, nasty or nice. The weeks seem to drag, and I know exactly how long I have to wait until I can be doing something different. I remember Advent calendars with chocolate hidden under each date that made the wait until Christmas seem even more maddening. Bad things, like the GRE, cause trepidation in the lingering weeks before them, much worse than the things themselves. But sometimes change happens drastically and without warning.

Tonight my mom and my grandparents came home from Mayo Clinic. My grandfather's cancer is advanced and he has weeks, maybe months to live. At the beginning of the summer we had no inkling of this--he was chopping wood, taking walks, mowing the lawn.

Now, instead of sitting up with a dying stranger, I'm listening for my grandpa, to help him walk to the bathroom, to give him Ativan and a drink of water that he can barely swallow. Outside my window, in the park, the band is playing at the annual Waterville fireman and policeman's party, and I hope they don't disturb him.

Retirement!

Yesterday was my last day at my Toledo job! Now I only work at Special Collections until school starts in a month. Whoopie for student life, where working two jobs still doesn't pay the bills!

The other day on NPR a woman who wrote textbooks said that if students would give up their BMWs, cell phones, and beer money for a month, they would have plenty to pay for expensive textbooks, which greatly facilitate learning. HMMPH! Not only do I lack a BMW, but I don't think I've ever learned a thing from a glossy textbook. Remember that Biblical Survey book that counted the number of times "God" was used, and had all sorts of stock photos from the Holy Land? Elements of Style is not a glossy, nor is Wheelock's or Pojman. Thankfully, in grad school we use mostly journal articles available online through the library--for FREE! I guess undergrads are considered too stupid to learn without picturebooks.

A Matter of Centimeters

I always expect traumatic things to happen in new places, but never in my own doorway.

I was walking out of my basement as usual today, except my shoes made me perhaps a quarter of an inch taller, and my head was tilted back for a drink of water. Suddenly I had a very sore head. I didn't realize I'd been within an half-inch of disaster for the past three years.

Thresholds are frequently hazardous to anyone over 6 foot. I remember a particularly bad incident last summer, as I was jumping up and down in doorway of the house on Royal Street.