Going to Waste

So here I am on my own blog on a New Year's Eve, mostly because I want to use a link I keep here, and I see that Pixie over at Why Architects Drink has a new post up.

(Link to said post, for your convenience.)

And I'm reading what she wrote and I'm thinking, "Hell!"  Or if you want to be Southern about it, "Hay-ell!" Because the way she's been feeling lately is the way I've been feeling.  Except my depression and anger is all tied up with the fact that I haven't been practicing as an architect these last six or seven years.  I'm not designing houses, I'm cleaning them.  And I'm not giving people design advice in the conference room of an architecture office in return for a reasonable professional compensation, I'm giving out design advice in the aisles of the Big Blue Box Store for next to nothing.

And some nights I get so angry about it I pray God to make the time go fastfastfast till I can go home, because I'm tired of acting all nicey-nice and I'm afraid that if I get one more customer asking me some bloody fool question I'm going to rip his bloody fool head off and he'll deserve it, too, for being such a bloody fool.*

Thank God it's not like that every night.  And the last night it was, a co-worker left me some chocolate and I ate some on break and came back feeling half-human.

Which is about all the anti-depressant drugs this kid can afford.  Or wants to take.

But something has to change.  I put off till the last minute doing the continuing education it would take for me to retain an active architect's license: what the hell did I need it for, the rate I've been going?  But I made the effort and got the CE hours in and some to spare.  So can I do anything with it in 2014?  It would have to be on a freelance basis.  I doubt I could convince any architecture firm in the area that I could be useful to them, especially with the economy still in the tank.

But heaven help me, I have to do something.  What I'm doing now does not pay the bills.  And it makes me feel I've wasted my education, my talents, and my life. And I can't go on feeling that I've wasted my life.

And I don't have much life left to waste.

_____________________________________________
*No, not all the customers are bloody fools.  That's the anger talking.  But some are, and when they are and I'm in that state of mind, it's scary.  Bring on the 80% cacao . .  .

Blahg, Blahg, Blahg

A few years ago, when I first heard about blogging, I was reliably informed that it was basically mental regurgitation.  Random, stream-of-conscientiousness effluvia.  Inchoate plops of verbiage emitted whenever the writer had the impulse.

I discovered, of course, that this is far from the truth, at least for weblogs worth reading.  In fact, writing a blog post is more like producing an essay than anything else.

And with one thing and the other, I don't feel like producing essays lately.

But I wouldn't mind occasionally emitting a few plops of verbiage, inchoate or not.

In no particular order and in no particular relationship:

• Which is stronger-- my dislike of wrongheadedness or my dislike of conflict?  I ask myself this as I wonder to what degree to engage my niece and a friend of hers on Facebook over their screamingly erroneous and absurd political opinions.  Disagreeing on aims and goals and ways and means is one thing.   Having someone take her stand on outright lies is quite another.  But at this stage of the game, where do you start?  Is it worth trying?
•  
• Hoping Mitt Rommey wins the election tomorrow; we can't take four more years of Mr. Obama's policies.  But I have no illusion that a Republican victory will automatically open up the jobs market to someone of my age and experience.  Can't hurt, however. 
•  
• It's going to be hard keeping my weight down now that the cold weather has set in.  Find myself wanting to eat more.  I have a new dark gray size 6 dress I've been wearing on Sundays to preach in, but who knows if I'll be able to get into it the Sunday after Thanksgiving-- that's my next engagement.
•  
• Preached yesterday at a church where I've been before.  They put on the back of the bulletin, "Welcome Rev. Blogwen X* who will deliver a great SERMON."  (All-caps theirs.)  Yes, indeed, God willing I hope it was a great sermon, but I'm sorry, I'm afraid it wasn't a little bitty short one.  Normal twenty minutes-- but oh, dear, it was Communion Sunday.  And as one of the elders told me afterwards, "the old people are used to getting out in a hour," Communion or not.  He acknowledged that it was too bad they thought that way about the Word of God, but well, "they're old."  Thinking about it afterwards, I beg to differ.  The problem is not that they're old, but that they're old children-- children as to the Word, who have never matured in the faith enough to savor a proper meal of spiritual meat and drink.  But what can you do to help them grow up before they die, especially when you're not the permanent pastor?
•  
• Spent the afternoon processing my Halloween jack o' lanterns into pumpkin purée.  Ended up with maybe three quarts or more of it.   Now I've got to figure out what to do with it all, especially since freezer space is at a premium-- I'm storing up raw milk against the winter when the dairy dries out their cows.
•  
• Oh, did I mention I've been drinking raw whole milk since last April?  Great stuff, which is why I want to lay in a good supply until the cows come into milk again in the spring.
•  
• Thinking about the poor people in New York and New Jersey who've been devastated by Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy.  If my power was out but my house was intact and I'd put by enough water, I would be okay for food for two or three weeks, just on what I have in the pantry.  Though if the gas were shut off as well, I might be reduced to eating cold soaked pasta-- gack.  But the people in the New York boroughs, they don't have room in their dinky apartments to store a lot of food.  Their pantry is the shop down the street.  Praying the power and transportation lines will be up again sooner than soon.
•  
• When I look forward to enjoying the new milk in the spring, I may be living in a fantasy world.  My financial situation really stinks, and for all I know, by spring I may be living under a bridge. 

But that's another essay I don't feel like writing at the moment.

Chicken

It may have been noticed that I haven't posted since last August.  Some of that is busyness, some of it is laziness, a lot of it is childishness, but most of it has been cowardice.

Yes, cowardice.  This past autumn I interviewed for a half-time position as an interim pastor with a parish in my presbytery.  During the interview, I mentioned that they could see a sampling of my sermon style on my preaching blog.  Makes sense, right?

What I forgot was that the sermon blog was linked to this one.  And one of the committee members clicked through, found this blog, and, as she wrote me in an email, was deeply disturbed by what she read here.  Seems I was too open with my revelations about how things had gone in my previous parishes, and although I had disguised church and presbytery names well enough, it bothered her.

We talked on the phone about it, and she professed herself reassured about my history and my explanation of it, and said she'd only mention it to the other committee members if she felt she should.  But I didn't feel easy about it.  Up to that time I was pretty sure I'd be offered this job.  After this, I felt my past and my big mouth had come back to bite me again.

It's very like me to write and reveal and not expect what I've written to have any effect in the real world.  Hey, I think in imaginary conversations where I work out how I would explain things to other people; isn't a blog just more of the same?

No.  I guess it's not.  You know the term "chilling effect"?  That's what this had on me.  I felt literally cold inside. I took the link to here off the sermon blog.  And for months I've written nothing.  I was afraid to write anything.  Not here, at least.  Too paralyzed thinking about how what I say can be misconstrued or used against me.

Chicken, chicken, chicken.

As it turned out, after observing certain things while guest preaching in that parish, I decided the position was not for me.  It would have been impossible to do all that was wanted and needed on a mere half-time basis.  But for whatever reason I didn't ring them up and say so.  Maybe I wanted to be convinced otherwise, since I really need the work.  Eventually I heard from the search committee chairman himself: they were going on with other candidates.  I bit the bullet and asked what had eliminated me.  The answers weren't totally convincing, I thought.  Had the one committee member told them about this blog, and he didn't want to say so?  Better not to ask.  And as I said, by that time I'd tacitly withdrawn myself.

That's been almost four months ago, and I hope and expect they're beyond caring what I say here.  But I guess it's a lesson.  I have to be willing to stand up and take the heat for what I publish, or shut the dickens up.

"Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill!"

Haven't fallen off the edge of the world.  But things have changed in my work life, and it's not just that I have less time to blog, but also that I'm feeling less impetus to blog.

I'm getting more substitute teaching engagements since the start of the new year.  That's largely because I've been taken off the naughty list of one school I'd formerly subbed for a great deal.  I was put on their naughty list last October when the principal thought I'd said too much about why the teacher I was subbing for was out having surgery.  (No, dear readers, I didn't sign any HIPAA pledges when I took that job, and the way the other teachers were talking about her op, I didn't think it was a secret).  Principal was sure I'd offended the regular teacher, so I was out until further notice.  Further notice came the day after the January teachers' meeting, when the teacher in question asked why she hadn't seen me around for so long.  She hadn't been offended at all!  So I'm back on that school's list, and they're calling me two, three, four times a week.  That on top of the other schools that call me, too.

Then, three or so weeks ago, my friend Frieda* called and said, "I've just gotten a job working the front desk at Dick & Harry's Tax Service*.  They still need people.  Didn't you work for them before?  You should call and see if you can get on, too."

I did call, I was rehired, and currently I'm working every evening, five weeknights a week.  This week I'm on from 4:00 to 9:00.  Really fun (not) coordinating that with the subbing work, where I often don't get off till 3:30, but we manage.

So "it's work all day for the sugar in your tay," and that's about what my earnings will buy me, the pay in both of these jobs being so low.  But I have to take what I can get.

Today I did not get called in to teach.  I caught up on my sleep, and now I have to a) do housecleaning, to get rid of the sanding dust so I can refinish my stairs, and/or b) do architectural continuing ed (blast! my calendar is backed up with that!), and/or c) do my on-line study for my English teacher's certificate, and/or d) finish what I need to do with my email addresses so I can finish dumping my old DSL Internet provider, now that I've been nearly a month with the local cable people.

And am I excited about doing any of these things?  No.  My mind is obsessed with when payday will be and will it bring me enough to cover my looming bills, and damn! I'm supposed to be so educated but here I am working twelve, thirteen hours a day for peanuts, which probably won't cover my looming bills, and sometimes I just want to cry.

There is light and blessing in all this.  Like the teaching gig I had last Friday where the regular teacher wasn't leaving until lunch time and I had all morning to sit-- yes, get off my feet and sit!-- in the teachers' lounge boning up on advanced Algebra so I wouldn't look like an idiot when it came time that afternoon to teach it.  And the local Red Wing Shoe store a couple weeks ago had some nice, comfortable, lace-up black shoes on sale for $10.00 a pair, and aren't those a godsend, especially in this weather!  And yesterday the student teacher did most of the work, so the fact that I had to report to Dick & Harry's without any dinner didn't make as big a difference in my front desk performance.  Imagine if my full energies had gone to teaching and disciplining and organizing first graders all day!

Well, three hours now till I have to change my clothes and get to the tax office.  God grant I use them wisely.  But you don't blame me, do you, when I come home at 9:30 and just want to watch reruns of I Spy or Magnum, P.I. on Hulu.com?

For the Sake of Posting

Maybe a month ago I heard a report on the news about some woman up in Canada who was on disability for depression. Her insurance company was planning to end her payouts because they'd come across photos of her on Facebook, attending a party and engaging in whatever other fun and frivolity. The insurance company said, "See! That proves you can get out and have a good time! You're not depressed at all! So get back to work!" The woman herself says her doctor told her to get out and mix and mingle, for the sake of her emotional health.

I don't know this woman. I haven't even seen the pictures. I don't know if she really is a party girl greasing off her fellow premiums-payers, or if in the midst of the social whirl she painfully maintains a pasted-on smile, in "Tears of a Clown" fashion. But this story aptly illustrates the hang-up I've fought for years over the issue of depression. The idea is, if I'm depressed about something, I'm obliged to go on feeling depressed about it until the problem is Absolutely, Totally, Thoroughly Solved. So if I go showing any signs of cheerfulness, the bad situation can't be real. But I know in myself that it's very, very real, so I must go around feeling as morose as possible.

Happily, at my age I've gained some perspective, not to mention stronger faith, and for the most part I've outgrown this emotional quirk. Nevertheless, it has really operated in keeping me from posting anything on this blog since early October. After all, the problem of my having to put my architecture license on inactive status is a serious, life-affecting matter. And I haven't solved it yet; at least, not in the sense of getting all the required continuing ed in before the end of the year. So how could I write frivolous posts about fall colors or cooking or what-have-you and still have anybody believe that the license quandary is serious to me?

But it's getting to the point where not posting is a problem in itself: I've had readers (well, maybe one) thinking of organizing a virtual search party.

So here's a post for the sake of posting. Maybe one of these days I'll write more about the rigors and joys of substitute teaching. And about what I've been doing to get ready for Christmas. But right now, one of the thrills of subbing is that it induces me to get up very early in the morning and also to get sleepy in the evening ditto. So before I write total gibberish . . .

Hairy Experience

A couple weeks ago I was substituting in an area junior high school and one of my responsibilities was a study hall. The eighth graders were, um, multitasking at their studies, and besides looking at algebra and geography they had lots of attention left over for chatter and moving around the room. I came back to one boy's desk to get him refocussed on his homework. As I did he piped up, "I really like your glasses! Where did you get them?"

Well, I may be middle-aged in years but I'm young and dumb in public school teaching. Me, I didn't want to seem cold and unfriendly. So I answered him: "At the dollar store."

A little later, same kid calls up to me as I stand at the front of the room: "That's a great skirt you have on? Where did you get it?"

You see how young and dumb I really was, for I took that at face value and answered it, too: "At the Goodwill." I mean, why should I be ashamed to champion reuse and recycling?

Whereat the eighth grader grins impishly, taps his buddy in the seat in front of him, and snerks, "Yeah, I thought so!"

I was alerted to his lack of bona fides now. Awhile later, when I was walking along their row trying to keep things going in the general direction of study, the first kid's buddy pipes up and says, "Hey, I really like your hair! It looks so smooth and shiny! What shampoo do you use?"

All right, that's enough. The glasses I don't really like, they were just the ones I could find that morning that were the right strength. But hey, maybe somebody else might truly like them. The skirt was a classic challis print, not the height of fashion, but a good cut for me. My hair that day, however--! Any references to it being "smooth and shiny" had to be blatant lies. I knew good and well it was a frizzy stack of straw, because I'd had to blow it dry the day before and it was worse than usual. But my hair is naturally wavy, even curly, and what could I do?

Serendipitidous, then, that a few days ago I came across this post on Beauty Tips for Ministers on the trials of coping with naturally curly or wavy hair. In the comments I found a link to a post on the Curly Girls blog, all about how to make the best of your curls. Condition twice if your hair needs it, don't wring out your hair or towel it dry, comb out once but otherwise avoid using brush or comb, apply curl gel or mousse, dry your curls individually at high heat, high speed by laying them in the trough of your blow dryer's big diffuser. Etc., etc.

Hmm, think I, it might be worth taking a shot at that. I waited till today, when I had no summons to come in and teach. That'd give me the extra time.

Okay, hair washed and conditioned twice. Check. Excess water squeezed out only. Check. Combed through, part put in and that's all. Check. Curly hair gel applied. Check. Curls dried individually at high speed and heat in the trough of the blow dryer diffuser?

Not check. Oh so very not check, indeed.

The author of the Curly Girls blog has long hair. Maybe she can get her strands individually into the diffuser. My hair at the moment, however, is chin length. Will you please tell me how I can get any separate strand into that big diffuser? And how can I use the dryer at high heat and speed without it blowing into frizz my entire head of hair?

Maybe she could, but I can't. I reduced the speed to Low and tried a little more, then flipped my head back up. Front was dry-- in all sorts of useless directions, partularly the bangs-- and the back and sides were hanging there flatly in little curvy strands, soon to become frizz.

Phooey.

I've "set" the back and side hair in a scrunchy. I'll take it out when my hair's dry and see how things look then.

And maybe next hair wash I'll try doing everything up to the blowdry point and then just let it airdry, as I was advised by a former hairdresser when I was getting permanents. And take my comb down the basement (where my only shower is) and run it through my hair while it's still hanging upside down, before I even step out onto the bathmat. Just the lag time of going upstairs and getting dressed may have dried some of my hair out too much.

But the blowdryer? Meh. There's a reason I haven't gotten it out for years.

As for those two impudent kids, I chose to be snarky right back. What shampoo did I use? "Same as your mother buys for you!" Not the response most advisable, I now realize. Smart*ss kid doesn't call for smart*ass teacher. No, next time a student asks me personal questions like that, I'm thinking I'll have him look up the meaning of "impertinent" in the classroom dictionary. And make him copy out the entire definition, phonetic markings and all. On the chalkboard. Twenty times.

That'll larn 'im!

Blog Housekeeping

Sorry I haven't posted much lately. Too busy with house reno and house bloggery. And Facebook, oh, my!

I've added the Blog Following List widget just now, and soon as I can, I'll move the rest of the blogs to it from the Linky List.

Hwyl!

Portrait of a Novice Writer

My operating system is reinstalled, I've got about half my data restored from Carbonite.com, and no, there aren't any residual trojans lurking in it.

I could do a post about the other big chunk of my data and files that have refused to be restored for the past week or more, but this isn't about that. It's about what else I was doing in April when I wasn't posting much.

I was taking a fiction writing class offered at a local church and taught by an author who's a prof at the local branch of the State U.

It was a good class. Good for the discussions on setting, character, plotting, dialog, and all the elements of fiction writing. Good for hearing about and discussing other people's projects. Good to be forced actually to work on a story idea I've had bouncing around in my head for three or four years at least.

What wasn't so good was that nobody else did any work at all. A lot of talking, but no work. I was the only one who actually wrote anything.

And I did. I really did. I spent long hours at it, and longer hours online reading writers' advice blogs and websites.

But because no one else brought in any writing, I never got the in-class critiques I was expecting. The teacher did tell me I should work on my novel (my novel? My novel!?) over the summer and she'd contact me about some writers' groups I might join in the fall. She feels I of all the class would benefit from being in one. But till then . . .

So I get to thinking: Should I-- might I-- would I post my work in progress here on the blog?

And I've decided, No. If it's any good, that'd queer it for ever getting published, because, hey, big chunks of it would be floating around on the Internet for free already. And if it's chozzerai, I've made a blinking ass of myself.

I've seen it happen. I'm thinking of one blogger in particular, who regularly writes bitingly-funny, heart-twistingly poignant nonfiction prose. But when she ventured into fiction, it was painful. It was as if she'd forgotten all the depths of characterization and motivation that made her blog posts so effective. And if such a fate could befall someone as good as she . . . what hope have I?

Nevertheless . . . though I won't post anything from my Big Project, I might publish here a little vignette I did for a class assignment. The writing instructor brought in an amateur oil painting she'd picked up at a flea market. It showed an old woman in a head scarf, and as a group we brainstormed who she might be, what her family, experiences, background, etc., were, and what crisis was facing her now. Then we were told to write a page of dialog based on it all.

This bit of writing isn't going anywhere; I have no wish or intention to develop this story further. So I think I'll post it. When I do, critique away. I can only learn.

So How Did It Go?

. . . Living without a computer for over two weeks?

It felt like the kind of vacation you take when you decide not to go anywhere; no, you're going to stay home and Get a Lot of Things Done. And a day goes by, and another, and another, and you realize time is passing and you're not getting all that much done.

So you put your back into it and start some serious work on the project you were looking forward to. You find yourself dreading the time when your vacation will be over, because then you'll have to go back to the office and when you'll really be able to get back to your home project you have no idea.

What I was working on I'll be talking about on my house blog. But that's how it was. I wanted the computer to stay away as long as possible.

The only time I really yearned for it was when some wallpaper samples arrived from the UK and one of them wasn't quite the color I'd expected. I wanted to go on the website right away to see what they might have instead.

But funny, my processor arrived back on Tuesday, I didn't unpack it and hook it back up till today, and I still haven't gone back on that site to order another sample.

I admit I wasn't totally computer abstinent these past sixteen days. I went to the local library two or three times to check my email. And found out that their pr0n filter is so strong it wouldn't let me log into Blogger to check my own blogs. I acquired a Pittsburgh Carnegie Library system card specifically so I could use one of their computers to update something on my house blog and respond to a comment or two on this one-- I figured their filter wouldn't be so strict and I was right. And I surreptitiously logged on on a laptop at Circuit City last Sunday and made another quick blog update and verified that my scheduled posts were appearing all right.

But other than that, I found being computerless to be rather liberating. It was nice not to feel obligated to plow through reams of junk email every evening. It was charmingly decadent to read four or more mystery novels instead of browsing random websites; I would've consumed more if I hadn't been stripping woodwork so industriously. I went back to faithfully keeping my handwritten journal (up to last Sunday). Hey, I got to bed at a decent hour!

I can't give the bloody thing up completely, of course. Not even if I wanted to. It's expected that you'll be connected these days. And I did miss communicating with you, my readers. But maybe, maybe, I can learn to be a bit more prudent with the device? Like keeping it my servant, instead of me being its?

It Will Be Interesting to See

. . . How I do for ten days to a fortnight without a computer.

Late last month, I established with the HP phone tech support people that my CD/DVD drive is toast. They sent out a guy to put in a new one, but alas! my processor is one of those skinny Slimline models without a lot of maneuvering room, and somehow the cable between the CD drive and the motherboard was broken. The only way for me to get it fixed is to send it to the factory repair facility in Indiana.

It was still under warranty-- just-- when this happened, so that's all right. HP has sent me a prepaid box to send the processor to them in. I waited two weeks while Carbonite backed up my data-- the repairs shouldn't affect the harddrive, but you never know. I've dealt with my online banking through the end of the month. I've taken care of some volunteer work that I needed the computer for. And tomorrow I'm going to pack it up and send it away.

I'll try to get over to the public library from time to time to check my email. Ideally. No guarantees of regularity. Maybe I'll post a line or two on my blogs, sans photos.

Otherwise, I'm going to party-- I mean, function-- like it's 1992. That's the last year I had no word processor or computer. In the coming days when I am not sitting in front of the monitor writing things or tarting up my blog entries with pictures and links or looking up interesting facts on the Internet (like this one I came across last night. Hey, I was in the middle of that and never realized the phenomenon had such a distinctive name!), how will I occupy my time?

Will I write letters by hand, or will I be stymied because most of my friends' addresses are on my computer?

Will I work like a Trojan on the house remodelling, or will I listen to what they told me at the chiropractor's office, that I'd exacerbate my accident injury if I do that?

Since I won't be able to download them, will I control myself as to taking digital pictures, or will I max out all my storage cards and buy more?

Will I build my plant-starting frame and get some seeds in against the Spring? Will I get some old sewing projects done, or will they continue to sit where they are?

Will I read the important books I ought to be reading, or will I let my trips to the library to check my e-mail give me the excuse to check out and read mystery novels and other frivolity?

One thing I'm pretty sure will happen, I won't be drying out my eyes staring at the screen till all hours of the night.

I've scheduled some installments of "My Cut-Rate Grand Tour" for publication in the interim. Comments always appreciated, even if I may not respond to them very quickly.

But it's been a long time since I've been computerless. I truly will be intrigued to observe how I take it. Will I suffer IT withdrawal, or will I experience almost a sense of back-to-the-simple-life freedom?

We shall see!

The Joy of Bloggery

In my last post, which features an entry from my 1988 Christmas break travels around Europe, my 1988 self writes, "What's life for except to be shared? And when you're like me and always taking in and never giving out, because you have no one to give to . . . it all seems pretty pointless."

When I was transcribing that from my handwritten journal, I had to be amazed at how things work out. Twenty years ago, the Internet may have been thought of, but not by me, and the concept of the web log had not been envisioned at all.

And now, here it is! Ordinary people like me who aren't syndicated columnists or publish-or-perish professors or popular short story authors have this forum where we can share life and ruminate on and give out what we've taken in, and whoever calls up our blog page can receive it-- or not-- all they please!

I admit that the forms that appear in blogs are nothing new. They are of old: the political column, the technical handbook entry, the theological pamphlet. The personal blog reproduces the private diary, and the more polished efforts of Blogdom owe tribute to three centuries and more of books of essays by men like Bacon, Lamb, and de Quincy.

But the freedom of publication is new, and it is amazing. Someone like me can broadcast my thoughts in my words over the wide fields of cyberspace, and all I need is a keyboard and a bit of bandwidth!

Four or so years ago, when I first heard of the web log, it was described as an indiscriminate stream-of-consciousness mind-dump indulged in by the terminally self-centered. Back then, I heard, daily or even hourly publication was everything, form and content and consideration for one's audience was nothing.

But I read others' blogs and learned different. I found that writers will display their care or their carelessness, whether they are publishing on paper or on-line. I found that if a blog featuring pure abandoned emotion turns out to be compelling, it's probably because its author is an artist of that style and labors to get the effect just right. I found that whatever the style or genre, the blogger has to mind what he says and how he says it, so his story will be featly told and his opinion aptly expressed, and his readers edified, entertained, enlightened, or, if that's the purpose, even enraged. And in the process, he'll find that his thoughts and opinions become clearer to himself, because he is not writing exclusively for himself, he is communicating with a great unseen audience.

At least that's how it is for me. And whether you, my unseen audience, are many or few, I stand in awe that the world has turned round to the place where I can communicate with you, and for that I am grateful.

Resolutionem ad Absurdum

2009 is u-cumen in, loude sing sparrow et crowe!

It's New Year's Day, so it must be time for New Year's resolutions!

And I have lots. Lots and lots, all backed up with fiery resolve for a clean, glorious, efficient, practical, productive, and did I leave out earth-friendly? new year.

>In 2009, I resolve to ALWAYS get to bed with the lights off by 11:00 PM, even if I don't get home till midnight! And ALWAYS to get up on the dot of 6:00 AM, no matter how many cats are on the bed!

>I resolve to wash the kitchen floor EVERY NIGHT before I go to bed, so its gleaming whiteness will make it unnecessary for me to turn on the light when I come down in the dark of the morning!

>I resolve to get ALL the renovation work done on my first floor, including any new flooring, so I can astonish my friends and neighbors when I invite them all over for the stupendous Christmas party I resolve to throw next December!

>I resolve that anyone who ever drops by unexpectedly will NEVER, EVER find my floors and stairs blowing with kitteh and goggie furballs!

>I resolve to answer all my business and volunteer work e-mails RIGHT AWAY, even if I don't know how to answer them, because I also resolve to become so confident and brilliant that I will ALWAYS know the right answer to everything, without needing to think about it!

>I resolve to finish up EVERY LAST ONE of my in-progress sewing projects, even the ones I started in the early 1980s!

>I resolve to grow my garden this year ENTIRELY FROM SEED, meaning I also resolve to teach my cats not to eat the seedlings from under the grow light!

>I resolve NEVER, EVER to leave a light on in a room where I am not; in fact, I will get my cats to teach me how to see in the dark!

>I resolve to turn all my compost piles once EVERY TWO WEEKS! At least.

>I resolve to buy NO MORE books until I've first verified my bookcase space!

>I resolve to buy NO MORE frozen food, until I've checked whether I already have three of whatever it is in my freezer already!

>I resolve to train my dog NEVER, EVER to bark unless it's really, truly important! And teach him to ask me first so I can decide if it really is.

>I resolve to put off reading new magazines and rereading old novels until I've finished EVERY LAST ONE of the (dry, dull, boring) church growth tomes I promised 16 months ago to read and review for my presbytery committee work!

>I resolve to focus on ONLY ONE thing at a time! My widdle sis thinks our whole family is riddled with ADD. I'll show her!

>I resolve ALWAYS to deal with and file all my paperwork right away! No piles in my study in 2009!

>I resolve to keep my accounts up to date EVERY DAY, and NEVER lose track of a single penny.

>I resolve to get a wonderful, fulfilling, high-paying full-time job in the NEXT TWO WEEKS and pay off ALL my credit cards by my birthday in June!

>I resolve that ALL my blog posts this year will be riveting and compelling masterpieces of modern literature (or is that 'post-modern'??)!

>And finally, in 2009, I will NEVER, EVER, EVER backdate a blog post!!


[And if you believe any of this, you need to resolve not to believe everything you read on the Intertoobz!]

Begging Your Indulgence

I fully intend to go back into my latest France post and add some footnotes and links. And maybe, maybe! some scanned pictures of the trip itself.

But not now. It's three days before Christmas and I got stuff to doooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!

Oops! I Forgot!

Back in October or whenever, I wound up posting my Great Britannic Adventure diary from 1989. And I thought that come December I'd do the same with my Shoestring European Grand Tour journal. That was from Christmas vacation 1988, and wouldn't it be cool to do each day's entry on its exact anniversary date?

But until this afternoon, I forgot. And that trip started on December 6th, 1988.

And that journal is not all typed up.

And I've got a lot to do around here.

So maybe I will post it, maybe I won't.

Maybe I'll backdate, and maybe not.

I'll think about it.

What do you, my mighty handful of readers, say?

Haow Kompittint R U? Part 1

Couple months ago I blogged about the Pastor Competency Model that's coming into play in my church synod as a pastor hiring tool. I floated the idea of presenting some of the prescribed interview questions as a meme. There was enough positive response to go ahead with it, so in view of the fact that tomorrow begins the second two-day retreat for training based on the PCM, here's Part 1 of the meme for Organizational Skills, Skill One, "Decision Making."

How Organized Are You?
Part One

DECISION MAKING--Identifies problems; analyzes information to draw conclusions; considers alternatives and risks; makes effective judgments with the involvement of others; accepts responsibility for making effective decisions.

If you play, go from your own professional and personal experience. If you feel like passing this meme along, cut and paste from the block quote above.

1. Describe a difficult decision you had to make. What things did you consider when making that decision? What happened as a result of your decision?

2. Describe a complex problem you recently faced. How did you work toward resolving the problem? Whom did you include in the decision process and why?

3. Tell about a decision that involved some risk. What did you consider? What was your final decision and why?

4. Describe a time when it was very important for you to understand all of the underlying issues to avoid drawing a faulty conclusion.

5. Tell about a time when you decided to involve others when making a decision. What was the situation? Whom did you involve and why?


Have fun! Parts 2 and 3 to follow.

Plugged In

Classical Presbyterian fans will like to know that on this beautiful autumn evening we got the Reverend Mr. Brown well and truly plugged in at the Jeff Center Church.

And here's my perspective on the matter.

This was my first time serving on an Installation Commission, though not, of course, the first time one was served on me. One thing I can never figure out-- why does the moderator (of presbytery) dissolve the Commission before the service?

(Because that's the way it's done, silly!)

The installation sermon was based on Ezekiel 33:1-16-- the responsibility of the prophet as a watchman to warn people of the consequences of sin. And by temporal extension, it's now the responsibility of the pastor and the church as a whole. Not the most popular ministerial duty, but if the traffic cop, say, fails to warn the motorist that the bridge is out, it's certainly that policeman's fault if the car goes into the river.

("But I don't wanna warn people that the bridge is out! If I tell 'em it's dangerous to go down that road, I might offennnnnd somebody!")

Only thing, only thing . . . I wish we'd been given a generous dose of Jesus Christ and how He works in us and through us in grace to enable us to discharge our watchman duties . . . I mean, I needed it . . . please?

The former interim pastor of the church gave the Charge to the Congregation, introducing his remarks with how he gets his jollies cheering against the football teams all his friends are for. It may well be a sign of the irenic nature of Toby's new congregation that they didn't rise in ire at this implied disloyalty to dem Stillers and bury the old IP in the nearest cornfield.

On the other hand, he was their Interim. Interim pastors are supposed to be obnoxious and shake things up-- right?

There was a point to his provocation, however. Instancing how he recently cheered for an Ohio college team with a freshman quarterback against the Pennsylvania college team favored by a family member, he drew the analogy that while the church's new pastor wasn't quite a freshman, it has its mission and service plays down so well it might be tempted to forget they have a new quarterback on the field. "Let your new pastor call some plays! When I was here, I practically only had to show up on Sunday to preach! You took care of everything else, and I could hardly get a word in edgewise!" Laughter from the congregation! Music on the organ console shaking, from the organist unable to contain herself!

Me Toby asked to give the Charge to the Pastor. This past week or two, contemplating what the Holy Spirit might want me to say, the frivolous part of me couldn't help having a giggle or two at what can come these Internet-driven days from leaving comments on someone else's blog.

Never fear: My mind was in Earnest Mode when I wrote it. Considering the chargee, it was natural to take a quotation from J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings as a jumping-off point. And the scheduled hymns-- all with martial elements-- provided more framework. After that, the appropriate Scripture passages seemed to crowd in so thick I could barely find my keyboard.

Well, wouldn't you know it, the first hymn got changed in the interim and I'd quoted it three or four times! No matter. By the grace of God, I believe what I said was appropriate and to the point.

(And worth remembering, I hope, more than the charge I got at my ordination, when my preaching friend advised me per the water when doing baptisms, "A little dab'll do ya!" Every time I recall that, I want to yell, "No, it won't! God attached physical signs to His grace in the sacraments for a reason! People out there in the pews gotta see and hear the water!! They have to feel like they're getting wet!")

Funny thing is, the Charge to the Pastor, which I worked on carefully ahead of time and delivered more or less according to plan, apparently hadn't as much impact as another part of the service I thought I had under control, but didn't.

This was the Prayer of Confession of Sin and its Call to Confession and Declaration of Pardon. I determined to use a form of Romans 3:21-26 as the latter. I even wrote the verse number down. So why I didn't put a bookmark in my Bible at the passage, I do not know. The Call to Confession, I had a few ideas for appropriate verses for it, but decided I'd settle on which when I got there.

Oh! (I settled this evening) I'll split the Romans 3 passage, and use part for the Call, and part for the Declaration! But when I got into the lectern, I discovered first that I'd left my bulletin with the Prayer of Confession on it in the pew. I had to confess my own fault and ask another member of the Commission to hand me one. Then something seemed to possess my fingers: fumbling with the thin, slippery Bible pages, I could not seem to turn to the place in Romans I needed. Flip-slip, flip-slip, flip-slip! Oh, gosh, this is taking forever! Everyone is staring at me! When I finally found it, there was no way I felt I could take the time with my dratted presbyopia and study which verses should go where.

So I gave up. I summarized Romans 3:23-24 ("All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God . . . ") for the Call to Confession, and fell back on my heart verse, Romans 5:8 and surrounding, for the Declaration of Pardon. I don't know exactly what else came out of my mouth. But I guess it was what the Holy Spirit wanted, since two different people (both of them men, if it matters) came up to me at the reception and said, "When you gave that Declaration of Pardon, I just wanted to jump up and get going! I felt totally forgiven, and now I wanted to go out and serve!"

Oh. Really? God used me like that this evening? In spite of my klutziness?

Hmmm. Maybe I should remember this for those times when I'm making a hard job of forgiving myself. Because if there was any absolving power in what came out of my mouth this evening, it wasn't from me. But it's certainly available to me, if I'll just believe God and ask.

But now, here's what I'm thinking: That it'd be really, truly nice if very soon I'd be in a position to invite the Rev. Mr. Brown and some of the members of his Installation Commission to do the same service for me. Having gotten Toby plugged in, I would be grateful and gratified to find my own place to be plugged in, too.

Fun Applet

Look what I just made! (Click on the image to see it bigger, since I haven't figured out yet how to do that)



That's a word cloud based on Sunday's pickle post. Made it on Wordle.net, a fun site I picked up from Chris Roseborough's blog. Don't click on the Wordle link if you don't have some time to play!

Silence

I want to apologize for not posting lately. I've had some things going on in my life that I need to know more about before I go publishing anything about them. They've taken time and effort to work on, so . . .

In the meantime, here's an assignment for all five of my readers (LOL!): What does it mean to you to be listened to? What does that look like, "walking around"? Does it make a difference if the person you're addressing is someone you have authority over? Or who has authority over you? What about between equals?

I'd be interested to hear!

"May I Introduce . . . ?"

It's been edifying, milking present-day life lessons out of my Easter experience on the island of Iona nineteen years ago. Gives me something to ruminate over while I dig my vegetable garden.

One big piece of mental cud I'm chewing is how things coulda-shoulda-mighta been different between the young man I'm calling Lukas Renzberger* and myself that Maundy Thursday night during the tea break at the abbey. He confessed to me later that he thought I expected him to integrate me into the group spending Holy Week at the abbey, and due to the concealed conflict among those people, he couldn't deal with the prospect.

"Integrate," hmm? When I was doing an entirely different program in another building and only encountered the abbey group during worship services and evening tea times? Hey, guy, whatever happened to a simple introduction? Something like, "Blogwen, this is Malcolm. He's here from Edinburgh. Malcolm, this is Blogwen. We know each other from Oxford and she's from the United States." Straightforward, gracious, and leaving each introduced party free to pursue the acquaintance or not, as they wish.

The simple introduction: whatever happened to it, indeed? I've observed the past twenty-five years or more that the routine introduction seems to be moribund or dead. I recall in 1985 or so, standing with a friend in a recital hall lobby after a performance, when a young man came through the outer door and greeted the man I was with. The two began to talk, and I gathered that the newcomer had been the piano soloist with the city symphony at their concert the same night, and had come over to the other hall when he was done in hopes of meeting up with my friend, his old buddy from music school. All very interesting, but I was left standing there, irrelevant as a third wheel on a bicycle. Finally the pianist grew embarrassed at my friend's neglect, and introduced himself. If he hadn't, my friend would have chatted on and on and left me out entirely.

You see it all the time. People are together in a public place or maybe in a social setting, someone else joins them and greets someone of the original group, and the two focus entirely on each other and give the rest of the group no way to participate. Or it's the newcomer who gets left out.

The extreme version of this is the person who takes cell phone calls when she's in company. Not that anyone expects the recipient to introduce the caller to her friends who are with her physically. Which is a good reason why the cell phone should be put away on such occasions!

Then there's the larger impact of the decline of introductions. Used to be, thoughtful people would systematically introduce others to people it would be advantageous for them to know-- for marriage, for professional advancement, for social networking. Now we have to depend on Internet matchmaking sites and resume services.

Why do we not do this? Why has the introduction gone by the boards?

Some would claim it's because they don't want to meddle in other people's business. "After all, if he wanted to meet that big executive in his field, he'd introduce himself!" "I wouldn't think of introducing my niece to my friend's son who's just moved back into town! If she wanted to meet men, she wouldn't put in so much overtime at work!"

But I think it's just another sign of American individualism. Or, considering my experience on Iona, Western individualism. We focus moment by moment on who we are and what we want to do, with whom and when we want to do it. It's just too much trouble to expand our notice to include others, even others we've been with up to then.

American individualism can be a good thing-- if we spread it around and intermingle it so we all benefit. Making a point of introducing people would be a good place to start. At work. At parties. At church. Where you hang out. If you're concerned about protocol, it's the respectful thing to introduce the younger person to the elder. And, at the risk of being politically incorrect, the less experienced/less powerful/more junior person to the experienced/powerful/senior individual. And the man to the woman. But if you get it turned around, that's better than leaving a fellow human being dangling while you create your own private world with a third party!

Besides, if you introduce, you may find you get introduced-- to some people it'd be really valuable to know.

However-- however-- there is one place where the introduction is not dead. And that's in blogdom. It's called the link. It's the chaining blog awards given out by bloggers like Sandy and her colleague Daryl before her. It's cogent and thoughtful comments left on each other's posts.

No, we haven't met in the flesh; we don't necessarily know each other's real or full names. But in the virtual world we've been introduced, and that's been a benefit and a pleasure to us all.

The Easter Weekend from Hell: A Tentative Introduction

more cat pictures

I haven't posted anything from my 1989 Great Britannic Adventure journal for awhile.

A lot of that is because I've been screamingly busy--with my garden, with activities of organizations I'm involved in, with trying actually to land a full-time job.

But a lot of it is prudence? discretion? cowardice?

All of the above?

I spent Easter weekend of 1989 on the Scottish isle of Iona. In my journal I record the sights and sounds of my geographical experience there. But those four days are also--predominently--the record of an emotional and spiritual journey into my own soul.

And it wasn't pretty. That inward trip was dark, cold, and dreary as the weather that swept down over that little North Atlantic speck of stone and peat that late March weekend.

Ought it be disclosed? True, I'm not who I was nineteen years ago, though I can sympathize with that young woman.

But will my readers understand that? What if I'm interviewing with a church, and a member of the pulpit committee happens on my blog and knows it's mine? Will he judge who I am now by who I was then? What if a pastor member of my presbytery sees it, and thinks, "What a wet noodle! I'm not clueing her in to any vacancies I've heard of!"

But then, if a church is that judgemental, do I really want to serve them? Would I be able to serve them? And any pastor colleague who might be passing me references knows who I am now and wouldn't care!

Besides [she says snarkily] I read all sorts of people who go to Iona and hang out with the Iona Community, and find it the most spiritually uplifting, life-changing experience they've been through.

Oh, really?

So . . . in the interest of full disclosure and for the sake of some cynical entertainment, maybe it's time for me to present the other side.

But first, in a subsequent post [or three], I'll give some background on certain people and on why I went to Iona in the first place.

Right now, however, I need to go out and get my fingernails dirty again. Assuming my own weather isn't acting Scottish and bucketing rain.