I feel like it's the day before summer vacation or something. I am taking off Thursday and Friday as holidays, but I've still got to work tomorrow -- brain, don't go to sleep yet. It's about 80 degrees outside, soft breezes are blowing, there's not a cloud in the sky the cherry blossoms are still on the tree...I'm not happy to be here inside in a windowless office. I'm mildly excited, too, because I'm going to see "The Pianist" tonight with a friend of mine. I had thought it was out of the theatres by now, but no, it's playing a couple of blocks from my office. Yay! Help me - I don't want to work. I've been bad this month and have bought more books than I know what to do with. I bought three cookbooks, a Calvin&Hobbes collection, a blank book to draw in, Stephen Millhauser's lastest book ("The King in the Tree"), a book of photographs from the Eastern Front of WWII, a fountain pen and ink, a Johnny Hartman CD, a book of Jenny Holzer's art, the first book of Guy Gavriel Kay's "The Finnavar Tapestry," ummmm.... Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey," and I think that's it. That's insane. I should take some of those back. I've bought a lot of new clothes in the past few weeks, too. Hmmm.. Maybe I'm going through a hypomanic phase. Lately, I've been sleeping and eating less without suffering....that ain't normal. |
I tried to meditate a little but after about 20 minutes my back started hurting. I wish I knew how to get my back back into shape. It has been hurting like this since my car accident in 1996. I have no strength in my back to sit and meditate or excersise, though I still do. I would just love to be able to sit outside and enjoy the day, the soft breeze, the sun playing peek a boo, the clouds swirling. I have too much to do, I just haven't done it yet. |
Also, for the first time in years, my breasts are swollen and tender and my bras are starting to feel too tight! I love that feeling! Need to go bra shopping! I wonder if my strapless bra is going to fit right now?!?! But I have been buying things as well. Maybe it is the weather!! Now, if only I could quit smoking. |
I just bought Cerebus volume 1. Now I'll have to get the rest. I am going to limit myself to no more than one a month though. |
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I will probably wait until next month to buy the next book on my list. It's like $15, which isn't too much I guess, but when you're broke it is a lot! |
Have fun on your trip, Sem! |
I love it when Easter and ANZAC day fall together. |
I have been pruchasing a ton of underwear as well...lots of fun colors and stripes. I am in the process of demoting all of my old underwear from favorite to aunt flo status. I'm in a fog so bad that it's a funk and I had to talk to my professors about it. Mark my words though, I will not take any incompletes...I will have everything done in in the next three weeks. |
K-Mart by us was having a going out of business sale, so I got all of my new undies for like anywhere from 5 cents to 29 cents per pair. Hehehe. Too bad they didn't have more in my size, the place was pretty well picked clean. Damn it. |
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I'm allowed to just abscond with things. It's great. I never buy books anymore. There's one I need to send to you, Spunkster. I think you would...enjoy it. It's so hard to work right now. Today wasn't so bad because it's been pouring rain, but Monday was horrid because it was so sunny and warm all you wanted to do was lounge outside all day and drink iced tea or something. Yay spring. The best season. |
I forgot three books from my list above. But let me tell you this -- I saw "the Pianist" last night. My goodness. It's a better movie than "Schindler's List." I had forgotten Polanski is so unsentimental a director -- I greatly admire him for that, and in particular for the unsentimental way he made this movie. Not once did I feel like he was playing anything for shock or tears value -- he was just showing things as they were. He let the reality speak for itself. Adrien Brody was amazing...everything was amazing. I was especially delighted to see Valentine Pelka, one of my favorite character actors, in the role of the husband of the cellist. I really liked how he played that character -- a good man who helped others but was not warm. I thought that was a neat touch. And of course, the music was beautiful, especially the piece Brody played for the Nazi commandant. I was in sort of a state when I left the theatre. I want to see the movie again. |
"Polanski himself is a Holocaust survivor, saved at one point when his father pushed him through the barbed wire of a camp. He wandered Krakow and Warsaw, a frightened child, cared for by the kindness of strangers. His own survival (and that of his father) are in a sense as random as Szpilman's, which is perhaps why he was attracted to this story. Steven Spielberg tried to enlist him to direct "Schindler's List," but he refused, perhaps because Schindler's story involved a man who deliberately set out to frustrate the Holocaust, while from personal experience Polanski knew that fate and chance played an inexplicable role in most survivals." |
i need new bras like i need more chocolate. (heh. go ahead and try to figure *that* one out!) but man, shopping for new clothes is so fun! especially in the spring! we are actually having a spring this year. we can leave the windows open and it's breezy and not too hot and not too cold. last year it was just winter and then right into blistering heat of summer. the top is always down on the bitch basket. right now i'm reading Miss Wyoming by Coupland. it's a lot of fun, more fun than All Families Are Psychotic. i'm into fun books these days. any suggestions? i have friday off. i'm going apartment hunting in the a.m. and then to kerrville to meet glen's daughter and watch her play t-ball. spider... what are your rituals for celebrating good friday and easter? i celebrate neither, but the fantasy of gothic catholic easters interests me. |
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Let me also say that I'm the religious one in my family, so I don't have any familial traditions or rituals, other than going to church on Easter and having a big meal later. Personally, for the past few years, I've been doing this: Go to Confession on Palm Sunday (this past Sunday), go to church on Holy Thursday night, take Good Friday off and spend a good portion of the day reading spiritual works and saying the rosary and other prayers (including the first day of the Divine Mercy novena....I'll explain below), rest on Saturday, go to Mass with some family member(s) or other(s) on Sunday, and then have the big meal in the afternoon. The period between the night of Holy Thursday and 3 pm on Good Friday is (to me) the holiest part of the year. That takes you from Jesus' time in the Garden of Gethsemane to his death. I believe that when Jesus suffered during this time, because he was God and was suffering for the sins and pain of mankind, he suffered all pain that every person ever created and to be created ever suffered...all at once. This is how he sanctified suffering, by suffering it all himself. So in the Garden of Gethsemane, he suffered all emotional/psychological pain, and during the day on Good Friday, he suffered all physical pain and the pain of humiliation....ever. And if you believe, like I do, that the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus (being supernatural events) are outside of time, Jesus is still suffering and dying on these days, as though this were in the present. So I spend Holy Thursday and Good Friday being mindful of this sacrifice. Saturday is sort of a quiet day... On Easter Sunday, I go to church, eat a lot, and say the rosary. The highlight of last year's Holy Week was going to the Good Friday service at the National Shrine. (Good Friday is the only day in the entire year in which no Mass is celebrated.) The service at the Shrine was incredibly beautiful, chiefly because the organist and (I think) church choir director write their own music, and they are awesome composers. The music was really dissonant and mournful, but amazingly gorgeous, soaring, transcendent... Seriously, the music is a spiritual experience in itself. The service (readings, processions, etc.) were also very solemn and meaningful. So I would really like it to be a tradition to go to the Good Friday service at the Shrine, but alas, this year, I won't be able to go. About the Divine Mercy novena: a novena is set of prayers that you say every day for nine days. I just deleted this huge paragraph about this particular novena, so let me just tell you the basics: basically, if you say this novena from Good Friday to the Sunday after Easter, all your time in Purgatory is wiped out. The Sunday after Easter is called Divine Mercy Sunday -- you can read more about it here (it's a pretty new feast day). The basic message is that the floodgates of God's mercy are opened on that day, and everyone who is distant from the church or stuck in sin will find themselves welcomed into God's arms. Not that that's not true on every day, but this day is extra special. Divine Mercy Sunday, the novena, all that surrounds it, etc. were instituted by St. Faustina Kowalska, who is my favorite saint. She was a Polish nun and a visionary, and she died in 1936. So, that's Easter in a nutshell. :) |
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wow. thanks so much for writing all that. very interesting... you make it seem very profound. and almost fun. |
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anybody notice this? http://bbs.sorabji.com/bible/ |
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This -- http://unbound.biola.edu/ -- is a neat online Bible, because it provides the original Greek and Hebrew texts along with all the important English translations. |
http://bbs.sorabji.com/bible/ " holy crap. i can't believe that, how did you find that? it's like finding out that there's a dragon living under your house and you never noticed. Mark Thomas, will you never cease fucking with our minds? |
tomorrow is cleo's birthday, and we are doing the following things: high tea movie- "spirited away" going to the top of the space needle that's all. |
My easter isn't until the 27th this year. I'm watching star trek and eating apple dumplings. And I like capris because they fit midgets like regular pants. YAY! |
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i read shampoo planet like a billion years ago. i was disappointed with it, but only because it had to live up to the genius of generation x. my fave coupland works are - in order - girlfriend in a coma, gen x, miss wyoming, and life after god. |
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this weekend i'm going to start reading five quarters of the orange by joanne harris. it's for my book club. before miss wyoming i read the sense of being stared at by rupert sheldrake. it was really quite fascinating and could make the concept of telepathy plausible to even the most skepital. |
And I will not be able to do much of any pleasure reading this summer since I have all kinds of other fun and exciting things to read. I will have to alternate Bourdieu with Nabokov. argh. i'm going to lose myself in my own head if i'm not careful. |
I haven't had much time for recreational reading lately and it's made me very sad. Especially since there are way too many good books out there I haven't read. |
I've been feeling totally crappy at the same time. Can't wait till all the mess in the basement is cleaned out. Even with my health problems I've really been popping at work. I can't believe how much code I've written. I haven't been this productive in ages!:-) I hate having to get my wife's underware and night gowns. She doesn't get out to do it. So I have to. It's not the fact that I must do the shopping for these items - I got over that ages ago. It's finding things in her size that's the problem. She wears a size 2XL. Which for her is pretty good. She lost a lot of weight last year. But, just try to find 2XL womens clothing!! She loves Vanity Fair shorty night gowns. I can only find them at Penny's. Unfortunately, they don't have her size most of the time. And, when they do I have to settle for what ever they have. You can't even order this through the catalog. |