Various Non-Blogalectic Things

Masha gave us the week off, so you get a page full of random today. Especially since we just got our first almost-glimpse of Darcy on the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and Lizzie Bennet fans everywhere are typing in capslock. I won't subject you to that, at least. But seriously. Darcy. (Is it less annoying if I use italics?) This is when the story starts to get good.

First, I'm mostly including this little video on introverts and extroverts because the drawings are so fetching. But also because I go in for nearly everything that recommends making the world a little saner for us reclusive types.



Second, Mythgard Institute. Where you can take accredited graduate school classes on fantasy and science fiction literature, notably The Lord of the Rings—or go through Wheelock and learn your Latin. They've just opened their spring 2013 quarter for registration, so if you're interested, check out the awesome.

Lastly, Arabella just sent this to me. You know how I feel about stars.

Busy

Today I am working on my story. That is all.

Well, that and the usual daily duties... and vacuuming... and complaining about the weather. The first of July, and it's raining? I could be okay with that if we'd had anything in the way of sunshine, but our nicest day this year might have barely scraped 74 degrees. Nothing will dry out, and I still have to sit under a blanket to stay warm in the living room. Please, God. We need summer.

Fortunately, there's always happy music when I need a mental break. Happy music is especially fun combined with a video full of people who dance as dorky as I do.

Methods, Lost, and other stories

If you're interested in the meaning of story and don't have some compelling reason to avoid Lost spoilers, you should totally read Travis Prinzi's post on the series finale. Having seen only about four episodes, I went ahead and read it, spoilers and all, and it nearly made me cry. My favorite part is what he said about happy endings--well, that or the part about the vindication of imagination and faith and spiritual reality, which was a lot of what Harry Potter did for me. Great stuff.

* * *

My friend and fellow writer Jana has begun a blog series about being single. It's the most real stuff on singleness I've ever read, and her posts lack the bitter taste that "being real" sometimes carries. The most recent, I'm Okay, Right?, is beautiful. How very well I remember that question.

* * *

Writers, do you know your perfect writing method? I prefer to focus on one project till it's done. My natural tendency is--once I get good and started on something--to resent leaving the computer even to get food, let alone to get the housecleaning done in a timely manner. That might not be exactly what that post was talking about, though.

* * *

I put that method to full use this morning with my essay. That piece has required a lot of my time in the last few days, but at this point I'm mostly happy with the first draft (as a first draft--I do want to give it some serious polish before it's set down for posterity.) My writers' group read the first few sections and gave me a lot of helpful feedback; Lou read all of it and upped my confidence significantly by telling me that almost all of my arguments made sense. Today has belonged mostly to fixing the parts that did not.

* * *

...of course, I got distracted around midafternoon by reading something on my late lunch break that talked about how critical agents and editors are of first pages. I had to go read the first scene of my novel, and got completely caught in a weird vacillation between "I love this, it's beautiful" and "This is awful--it doesn't give out enough information." Hmmm.

* * *

“If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars" (Arthur Hugh Clough). I should think of that now and then.

* * *

Last but not least, I love polyphony.



Happy weekend, everybody.

Jenna Milquetoast and other stories

Awhile back, I ordered a veggie lasagna at a great little Italian restaurant. The guy behind the counter said "You look like a veggie lasagna."

Last night, our schola director brought chocolate bars for all the members--lovely treat, and we were all grateful. He let us pick which ones we wanted, and I took milk chocolate. I like milk chocolate. I don't mean to have bad taste, I just like the flavor. He said "I can see the personality coming out here."

... seriously, guys?

If you think I'm bland, it's only because you've never attempted to really cross me. Ha. :D

* * *

In other news, I've looked back over my blog posts this week and realized that I've talked about myself a lot (yeah, I know I just did it again.) To make up for that, here are some things that you might find interesting or helpful or humorous. At least, I did....

Normally I hate things that open up in pdf, but I loved loved loved Stratford Caldecott's piece on children's fantasy literature, Landscapes with Dragons and Angels, which John Granger linked awhile back. It's worth dealing with the frustrating format. In fact, I just read the whole thing again in outright defiance of other demands upon my time.

For all my writing friends, Rachelle Gardner is asking what we've given up to pursue our dreams. Reading her post and the comments is a great way to realize that you're not alone in your insanity. I haven't commented yet, but I would have to say that my sacrifices currently include all television and most movies, a lot of sleep, any kind of regular relaxation, and trying to pretend I'm not an introvert.

Tyler Stanton has been making me laugh all week. Among my favorites: Electronic Laughter: A Definitive Guide (although I've got enough teenage girl in me that it's really hard to stop myself from responding to funny stuff with "ahahahahaha! xD") and the Hate List. "If I made gift baskets for my enemies, I'd fill them with Mounds, Almond Joys and Zero Bars." Ahahahaha. xD

This also made me laugh. Classify yourself! I'm either a nerd or a dork. How about you?

* * *

I'm going to go clean house and enjoy some of the beautiful and very welcome sunshine before getting back to work. Have a happy weekend, everyone!

Rambly Friday

12:02 AM. Oops. I did hope to get my Friday post up before midnight.... hello, Saturday!

Quick note: The other day I gave in at last and put up the Google Followers widget. It's in the sidebar, so if you want to be my Google Friend, feel free!

I've had a completely distracting day, but a fun one. This morning, after working on an essay project for awhile, I decided to time myself at getting through Google Reader and Twitter and all my email. Social media is drowning me a little; I've got to figure out a way to manage it. Unfortunately, I picked the wrong morning; email and Twitter direct messages kept me working well past noon and then I discovered a bit of a problem with one of my Myspaces. Fixing that got halted in the middle for a coffee date with my sister, and upon returning I had to clean house and make dinner, so I put on some wrock and got busy. Or, at least, mostly busy--I kept putting down the housework long enough to belt out the chorus to The Butterbeer Experience's song for the Whomping Willow or harmonize with Zoe from Split Seven Ways on a Marauders-era piece.

Then, after dinner, Lou and I walked up to WWU and saw Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah. It's a lot of fun seeing a show in your own town because you actually know people on the stage. A friend from church sang in the chorale and Chris from the WWU Harry Potter Club was in the university choir and one of our former coworkers played French horn in the orchestra. The performance was absolutely splendid, and then Lou and I had a beautiful walk home in the rain. Afterward we drove up to Wendy's and got Frosties and ... then it was nearly midnight, and here I am half an hour later, rambling off a sugar buzz.

Ah well. After a week of focused writing about revising novels, my Friday post was bound to be a bit rambly and useless, right? Oh wait, it's Saturday. Maybe I should go to bed.

Have a good weekend, everybody!

Brain Dump

The combination of a busy week and continued lack of sleep means you get a rambling thoughts post from me tonight. My focus is limited to about three lines at a time. Hopefully the rambles make sense.

* * *

The "three lines" thing might have to do with my having to write an author bio for the editing project I'm working on. How many of these have I written in the last three years or so? At least six. But author bios change depending on what project they get associated with, and I got good and stuck this time. It took hours, spread over days.

For those of you who may need to write an author bio at some point, here is an excellent article on how to write one. It helped me figure out why I kept failing. Ah, success.

* * *

This afternoon I was typing in Open Office and my computer bluescreened and then shut down suddenly. It came back up by itself and has worked fine so far. That's just one more example of how real-life stories can have happy endings.

* * *

Last night I sang polyphony with a schola. If music were my only form of creative expression, I'd think I was born to be a second soprano in Palestrina's choir.

* * *

Thanks to a few clear nights, my newly-acquired habit of stargazing has had opportunities to improve. Up until recently, I could only find the Big Dipper, Orion, and Cassiopeia and hardly knew any stars' names; now, in addition to attempting various pronunciations of Betelgeuse, I've located Spica, Sirius, and I think I found Arcturus last night.

Next on the must-find list: The Pleiades. I'm a little bit in love with the sky.

* * *

After giving my book to my writers' group for the reading, I have begun playing the second-guessing game. The main character never meets this other one, who is kind of a big deal; is that too weird? Is my character development strong enough? Should I have built up this or that plot thread more? Does it all move too fast? Am I just a hack writer who has no business wasting people's time with her words?

Riddikulus!

* * *

So I'm guessing that if I have 1700 unread emails in my old hotmail, I'm probably never going to get caught up on them. They're junk, I promise. If I see something real come through, I answer it.

* * *

Remedy for exhaustion: Quiet evening at home with husband, brownies and milk, Ministry of Magic on the headphones, and a little lazy blogging. I feel better, and just might get through everything I have to do in the next two days.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

More E-Books

Since I wrote about e-books yesterday, I can't resist linking to the best. e-book. post. ever. I laughed and laughed and read all of the possible answers, some of which sounded decidedly more hopeful than others. The reasoning behind the different possibilities also made a lot of sense.

The possible futures of the e-book industry have a lot to do with the question of whether I ultimately choose to query agents and go the traditional publishing route, or give in and self-publish. But that's a lot more post than I have time for tonight ...

Currently Falling Asleep

... and must rise at the unholy hour of o'dark-thirty in the morning, so apologies for the short post.

I need to spend the next several days helping out my family while my mom visits my grandma in Florida, which will likely decrease my computer time by at least ninety-five percent. The middle of next week may pass before I can blog again. We'll see.

In the mean time, if you haven't seen the following video by a guy who has made a YouTube name for himself out of things along the lines of transparent angling ferrets, you should. It makes me laugh.

Something Old, Something New

Chesterton, if I remember correctly, referred to Rome as a "living city." It isn't just ancient ruins. But it has ancient ruins, and ancient things that are not so ruined, and the incongruity of the ancient things existing right up against the modern fascinated me throughout the trip.

Of course, the incongruities were not limited to Rome, nor to the juxtaposition of old and new. Everywhere I looked, I found something to boggle the brain.

Exempli gratia:

Cherub with the usual innocent baby face, clinging to the head of a gargoyle:

I have to admit that weirded me out a little.

In Siena, you could theoretically tie your horse at one of the iron rings in the walls and walk across the street to a svelte little boutique embedded in the old stone. You could buy your designer boots, while your horse dodged a lot of well-dressed Italians and the occasional Smart car.

A similarly interesting experience is standing next to the ancient Roman wall--right next to it, because the cars and buses go hurtling past about thirty inches from your nose. Lou and I didn't take any pictures of that. When you're afraid for your life, you're not necessarily thinking about pulling out your camera.

Slick colorful modern machines next to stones that have been in one heap for millenia are a natural progression of living in an ancient city. Less natural or comprehensible was the idea some overeducated artistic director had of placing hideous, formless white statuary amidst the ruins of the Roman Forum.

Very strange.

More positively, Rome contains another incongruity at its very heart; one repeated over and over, but never more obviously than in the great and glorious temple designed to reverence a carpenter in the name of a fisherman.

Home and Groggy

back.from.rome.so.tired.must.sleep....

I am not feeling particularly coherent today. You wouldn't either if you woke up yesterday at 3 AM Central European Time (6 PM PST), spent 12 hours in airplanes and another three in cars, went to bed over 26 hours after rising, slept eight hours (till 5 AM PST) and spent most of the non-travel time in typing and doing laundry.

This is not one of my normal posting days and this post is therefore gratuitous, so maybe the need to be coherent is only moderate anyway.

Italy: Three cities, 26 churches, one school, several ruins, two gelaterias, about one pizzeria for every day of the tour, innumerable miles walked and two blisters to prove it, zero pickpocketing experiences, flabbergasting amounts of beauty and history, over five hundred photographs ... Reports coming. I journaled through the experience, even after starting NaNoWriMo (which made for a grueling combination).

NaNoWriMo: Began just after nine in the morning CET (12 AM PST) Sunday, November 1, at the front of St. Peter's. Amassed 32 pages in my little notebook over the next five days and wrote another 19 on the flight home. Typed it all up yesterday and this morning and discovered I'd written 10,386 words: 384 more than I'd needed to stay on pace.

I might be ahead on NaNo, but am rather behind on the Google Reader items and emails and catching up with people (and laundry and music practice and reading for book club and sleep). Do pardon me. I'll get there when I can.

Last Post before Rome

This will probably be my last post for a couple of weeks, as our plane to Rome takes off before my next standard posting time.

As a human, as a Christian, as a writer, as the daughter of an artist, as an American, as a woman who thinks cheese is second only to chocolate in the list of greatest foods--Italy holds all sorts of interest for me. When I come back, I plan to have pictures and stories to share.

NaNoWriMo begins just days into our trip. The thought of 1667 words per day makes me nervous--but less so since yesterday. Not convinced of my capability, I pulled out my non-NaNo story, picked out a plot point, and in less than an hour wrote 1683 words. I can do this! Provided, of course, that I do not give in to the frequent temptation to stop.

I admit, shamefacedly, that one of the things I'm looking forward to in Rome is a short break from the internet. At the bottom of Jennifer F.'s scorpion story (linked yesterday), I found the link to her post about 20 things learned in a week without her computer. I empathized with much of it. Full-time connectivity makes procrastination simple. I can find almost any information I want immediately. I get caught up in link-hopping. I agonize over how to respond to a perfectly normal email or whether I should comment on a blog or post a status update on Facebook ... and then I think I don't have enough time to do everything that needs doing. My internet time needs some rules. I hope to come back with some.

In case you don't want to take a break from the internet while I do, here are some things to keep you busy:

Baptist pastor Michael Spencer talks over the new possibility of reunification between some Anglican churches and Catholics. That news brought tears to my eyes. "One of the most bold steps in reuniting the church any of us will ever see", Mr. Spencer calls it. I agree.

I love wordplay. I've also discussed a lot of theology in my time. If you don't mind a little light-hearted theological word-gaming, enjoy.

Are you in the mood for spooky things over Halloween? Best go check out The Hog's Head. They're watching scary movies this week. I say "they're" instead of "we're" because I don't watch scary movies, but I might pop up in the comments if I have time and ideas.

Tyler Stanton doesn't really have a million peeves yet, but he's working on it. Hilarious.

In plain English, my response to this idea reads as follows: Yes, please! (Hat tip to CMR.)

If you need a laugh and don't mind not-so-plain English, there's always Engrish.com.

Likewise, icanhazcheezburger. I like this one.

In Rome I hope to see excellent Catholic art, some of the best there is. Here is some of the worst there is.

Still bored? There's always David Bowie. I'm going to try not to picture that next time Lou puts on The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.

Pre-Trip Stress

Eleven days till the starting gun is fired for NaNoWriMo. Much less than eleven days until our major plane ride to a foreign country. Last week was busy, this week is busy, and everything is going well ... I just wish I could tell my adrenaline levels to cut back for awhile.

Waking up at six-thirty from troubling dreams the past three mornings, and having sleep paralysis episodes when I try to go back to sleep: Not helping.

Email people who might be affected by my being gone ten days--go to the store for anything we need to take--fret over whether to make copies or take the whole chant book for the schola I just joined--flutter unproductively in and out of plans for NaNoWriMo--somehow manage to schedule my busiest weeks of the fall for right before departure--wonder if I'm actually accomplishing anything or just imagining myself busy ...

Breathe.

If I weren't overthinking every last thing I do, it wouldn't be so stressful. Nor would everything take so long. I wonder what the remedy is for overthinking?

Ah well. In just days, all I'll have to think about is how beautiful St. Peter's is, and whether I can work any of the glories of the city into my interstellar novel.

St. Hedwig, Tomatoes, and Peppers

I'm at The Hog's Head again today with a post about St. Hedwig of Silesia, namesake to Harry Potter's owl:

"In the Roman Catholic Church, today is the feast day of St. Hedwig of Silesia, after whom Harry’s owl is named. Jo Rowling’s character names are well-known to be aptly chosen, and Hedwig is no exception. Here are a handful of [what I thought were] interesting and potentially relevant points about St. Hedwig:"

(read more)

* * *
After a spring and summer of tomato, eggplant and pepper plants growing in our south window, I finally moved them outside today. Recent frosts had destroyed most of the leaves close to the window, and the harvest had mostly ended. Here are a few pictures from their prime:

The eggplant never made any eggplants (argh), but it made several nice flowers.

Kanashibari ... and other stories

New article up at Silhouette! Enjoy. It's on the reason I'm afraid to take naps or sleep in.

* * *

We're down to the Top 5 in my Fifty Favorite Books! It makes me feel like celebrating, even though it means I'll shortly have to work up a lot more new content.

I meant to have the list complete by the end of summer, and here we are already four days into fall.... Ah well. The final five will get posted over the next week and a half or so.

* * *

Funny line of the week: "Dear car driving right next to me on the Interstate, Let me get this straight. You’re driving forward and yet your wheels appear to be spinning backwards. I think I deserve an explanation."--Tyler Stanton

* * *

Best new link: Zinger Sandwich. This blog was also eligible for Funny Line of the Week, but there were so many great ones that it was difficult to choose. Besides, I did like that line of Tyler's--I've always wondered about that.

* * *

Most disturbing thing of the week: School kids singing the praises of Obama. How communist can we possibly sound? Don't answer that. I can't even bring myself to watch that video, but I read the lyrics of the song and shuddered. Hat tip to CMR & The Knight Shift.

* * *

Something I need to get done in the next week: Clean a big box of plums and preserve them somehow; this freezer compote looks like the best option. First, however, I am making Hungarian plum dumplings.

* * *

Weather report: What, sun? In late September? I'll take it. I'd be worried that we're going to pay for this, except that we did ... all last year.

A Time to Keep Silent and a Time to Speak

I found myself a prayer in Sirach today, chapter 22:

O that a guard were set over my mouth,
and a seal of prudence upon my lips,
that it may keep me from falling,
so that my tongue may not destroy me!

Hear, hear!

As a writer, the risk of giving offense is always present. It seems to count for little, sometimes, when words are cast out into the anonymity of the internet (at least, judging by the anonymous comments I find on some sites). But my blog is not anonymous, nor will my novels be, nor is my music. I run the risk of offending people I know and love, every time I make available anything I've created. I can never be exactly sure what will bother whom.

I have an overdeveloped postmodern fear of giving offense. The result is that sometimes I find myself simply saying nothing.

Not that I feel the need to speak my opinion into the lives of everyone on the planet. It's just that the restraint is a burden so heavy as to leave me understanding why the societal battle cry "Just be who you are, and screw anyone who disagrees with you" appeals to so many. Of course, that rally comes with a disclaimer: if you agree with the zeitgeist. That's a big if.

I wasn't raised to say "Screw anyone who disagrees with me". My parents taught me to be respectful of other people and their opinions and beliefs. But respectful disagreement can still offend, and in some cases nowadays, it doesn't even seem to matter if you disagree respectfully. You disagree, and that makes you either stupid or a bad person.

These thoughts aren't directed at any person or any idea. I just thought I'd pose the question: Where do you draw the line?

Irony: Lou and I just spent ten minutes debating whether "screw" was an inoffensive enough word to use in this post. I left it in. Hopefully it doesn't offend anyone. :D

Reading and Commentary

If any one reading this hasn't read the following article by a Harvard student, I highly recommend it:

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ... or, as the Creative Minority Report (my source) titled their reference to it, "Conservative is the New Gay".

This student writes with an appreciable empathy toward the conservatives who find that, as she puts it, "Life is hard in the closet. It’s dark, and there are never enough hangers." As a member of the online Harry Potter fandom, which is dominated by groups like The Harry Potter Alliance—which does a lot of good, on the one hand, and then weighs against that by pushing a radical liberal agenda in the name of all things Potter—I know what it is to find myself wondering when, or whether, to push my way out of the wardrobe and let myself be known for a Daughter of Eve.

... weird it may be, but I'm probably one of the few conservatives who might actually be comforted by a rainbow blanket and Elton John music quietly playing. I love bright colors and sappy Disney-type love songs. It's not my fault if they've been reappropriated. "Caaaaaaaaaaan you feeeeeeeeeeeeel the loooooooooooooooooove toniiiiiiiiiiiight …"

* * *

Many thanks to The Hog's Head for the link to this article regarding Richard Dawkins' plan to write a book about 'science thinking contrasted with mythical thinking.'

Of course Dawkins loves Pullman. Pullman was writing against the Church and says so bluntly. But what would Dawkins do with Harry Potter?

What would he do with Harry 'dying' a figurative death in each of the first six books in the presence of a Christ-symbol? (Harry's out cold for three days the first time—even Lewis only put Aslan under overnight.)

What would he do with the scene where Harry approaches a pool of water, wearing, around his neck, a locket containing a great evil? Harry sees a "cross-shaped object" lying at the bottom of the pool, a silver sword which can destroy the evil he's wearing; he jumps into the pool to get the sword, is nearly strangled and drowned by the evil, and has to be rescued by his best friend, who jumps into the pool with him, gets the sword, breaks the evil chain, and saves his life. Doesn't that sound too much like baptism for the atheist mind to tolerate?

What would Dawkins do with the poignant scene in the seventh book where Harry walks into the forest to lay down his life willingly for the lives of his friends?

What would Richard Dawkins do with Harry Potter? Pardon me while I go roll around on the floor laughing ...

But what in the world is he on about, thinking that fairy tales about frogs and princes have an 'insidious effect on rationality'? My mother 'established herself as a truth-telling thing', as G.K. Chesterton says, and she said the many novels I read were 'pretend' and I believed her. When I read Narnia at age 7, I knew it was not a 'true' story in the sense of following actual historical events. Of course, later I grew to understand the senses in which Narnia was and is a true story, and perhaps that is the very thing a man like Dawkins finds so dangerous.

I'll have to disagree, sir. I think it's our best hope for sanity.

* * *

The Internet Monk's (no, he's not Catholic) Annual Halloween Rant

I loved Halloween growing up, even though technically we didn't celebrate it. My family would shut off all the lights in the house and take a pan of warm brownies and some milk to a back room, where we'd play a game (yes, we'd light a lamp if necessary) or watch a movie during the trick-or-treating hours. What kid wouldn't love that? We loved it so much that we often did similar things throughout the year.

When Lou and I have children, should God grant us that blessed gift, I plan on doing the family-night thing at least once a month. Maybe once a week! Perhaps I'll take them trick-or-treating on Halloween. It seems important to me that children learn to face fears, and Halloween—depending on the kid—might be a safe environment in which to learn that our fears are often ugly masks that come at us in the dark, with little or no substance behind. We'll see. I certainly respect the opinion of those who choose not to participate in the Halloween festivities, but likewise I respect the iMonk's position. He's a good man and a good writer. This post of his, on trusting God as father, is also well worth a read, as are his everyday blogging efforts.

Lou and I ran out of candy by 8:00 PM last night, having manifestly underestimated the number of children who would pass by our house. They came in groups of five, seven, ten at times. Apparently, little toddling ones, stumping about on our front porch holding up tiny hands and staring with giant hopeful eyes, make me cry.

* * *

Other things also make me cry, like Alessandro Manzoni's The Betrothed.

Lou bought that book on our honeymoon—we went into a bookshop in Victoria and got souvenirs of the best sort: books. (He got me Elizabeth Goudge's Little White Horse, which is now one of my favorite novels.) He finished Manzoni's book a couple of weeks ago and obligingly told me it had a happy ending, though warning me it was rough getting there.

Crying over a book is not necessarily a bad thing. Tears come to my eyes every time I read the ending of Little White Horse. But my poor blessed husband had to clean me up big-time after The Betrothed. There were scenes of deep and desperate sadness throughout the book, especially toward the end, one of which really got at my heart. Then there came [spoiler alert] a word from a very Godly priest, full of a very holy truth which pierces the soul of anyone who loves, who happens to think on such things:

"And you, Renzo... remember this: If the Church now gives you back this companion in life" [the young man's bride had to be freed from an obligation under which she'd placed herself] "she does not do so to provide you with a temporal and earthly happiness, which, even if perfect in its kind and without any admixture of bitterness, must still furnish a great sorrow when the time comes for you to leave each other; she does so to set you both on the road to that happiness which has no end. Love each other as fellow-travelers on that road, remembering that you must part someday, and hoping to be reunited later for all time."

I told Lou he's not allowed to die any time soon. He promised. God grant it may be so! But of course I can't boss God around and no earthly happiness is guaranteed. All we can do is live as Father Cristoforo advised Renzo and Lucia. And now I am going to do my part and make my own dear man some dinner.

If You're Happy and You Know It

Yes, I'll post the other half of the wedding report. Soon. I promise! It just takes an absurdly large amount of time to put together.

I woke up this morning with a deep sense of frustration due to having heard another cannon-blast in the war of hatred currently being waged against Sarah Palin, whom I very much respect. It was some nonsensical article (click here for a biased report from the UK) about how she allegedly tried to get her ex-brother-in-law the state trooper fired, calling it an abuse of power, but reading the facts on that state trooper according to one who appears to have done his research, the guy needed action taken against him whether or not she had anything to do with it. (See #32.)

It's hard to remember, sometimes, that Jesus said his followers would be hated. (Not that the Left restricts their hatred to followers of Jesus.) I'd somehow never fully connected that with willful misunderstanding, malicious distortion, and criminally unjust accusation.

Anyway, I happened to be at Christ the King church this morning for my brother-in-law's baptism, and Pastor Grant Fishbook reminded me in his sermon that optimism is still possible and still important. Being a natural optimist, I liked this very much.

Take the story he told, which might have been true or made up, but was at least wholly believable. He said he went into a coffee shop and offered to buy coffee for the guy behind him in line if he'd answer just one question. The guy agreed, and Pastor Fishbook asked "What's right with the world?" "Not a [blank] thing", the guy responded. So Pastor Fishbook handed the guy his coffee and said "How's that?" "It's good," said the stranger. "That's one point for me," said Pastor Fishbook gleefully.

He used the same principle to point out that the guy had a little money and a job—two more things that were 'right with the world.' Then he read the passage from Philippians 4 that says "… whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things."

There, I thought, is a timely reminder.

I've been giving thanks in threes lately—yes, it's gimmicky, but as a sort of trinitarian way of reminding myself to give thanks it comes in useful. For a good husband, a loving family, a warm home. For books and houseplants and lamps. For an enjoyable job and respectable bosses and good team members. I'm finding thankfulness a helpful part of maintaining optimism.

And I think Trucker Tom had the right idea when he called into Father Roderick's podcast a few episodes back and suggested that people turn off the media for two weeks and see what it does to their attitude. If you listen to the news all the time, he said, you're going to think that we're all going to hell in a handbasket and everything's completely out of control. Sure, a lot of things are out of control, especially right now—but most of that is getting exacerbated by hysteria, which is amped up by doomsday reports from the news. Day-to-day life is still pretty good for most of us and we still live like kings compared to most of the world throughout most of history.

I like being cheerful. I'm not giving it up for politics—forget it. As for Sarah Palin, I'll be praying for her encouragement these next few weeks, whatever happens with the election.

Here's a link to my brother-in-law's blog (not the brother-in-law that got baptized today) for an excellent comment on the importance of certain issues and a short comment by Mrs. Palin on the topic.