Harold and Maude. Apparently it's a '70's "cult classic." Which makes some sense, especially since Cat Stevens did all the music.
Despite the fact that Cat Stevens has done some good music, if you haven't seen that movie, I don't suggest bothering. Unless, of course, you happen to like straaaaange.
Cheesy, I can often enjoy (The Russians are Coming, anyone?) Silly, I can take rather well--Dumb and Dumber was funny, as was Shanghai Noon. Bizarre, however... I've never quite gotten used to that genre.
If you liked Arsenic and Old Lace, then Harold and Maude, its somewhat poignant cousin, is the movie for you.
Call me a wimp, but I think I'll stick with Surf Ninjas.
11.26.2006
Baby, It's Cold Outside
[...but weren't the couple in that song in the same place while it was "cold outside"? Darn.]
If a picture's worth a thousand words, then it's really too bad that I don't have a digital camera.
Having grown up in Montana, I can remember when eight inches of snow didn't make that much difference in everyday life. Here in Bellingham, however, where I live on the side of a very steep hill and have armed my car for 'the weather' with no more than a frost scraper, eight inches of snow means "snowed in." The bravest and best, attempting the roads around my place right now, would like as not find their cars propelled ditchward by forces outside the control of man.
Despite every danger and disappointment involved in such weather and its effective prevention of any going out or coming in, there's something lovely and peaceful about looking out at a snowstorm from a warm room. Right now, outside the window by my computer chair, the snow is alternately drifting and driving down in dime-sized flakes, and gusts of wind occasionally come by and sweep clouds of it rather gleefully from rooftops and tree branches.
It reminds me of a Thomas Kinkade painting... only it's the wrong time of day for that kind of lighting, and Thomas Kinkade doesn't normally punctuate his sylvan landscapes with cars, wire fences and concrete abutments... but it's beautiful nonetheless.
Well. Since I am snowed in, I think I'll fix something warm to eat, talk to my best friend, do some reading, and play the piano. Maybe see if I can find some candles and pull out my creche. I feel like Christmas :-D
EDIT: But I sure wouldn't want to be traveling right now, like half of America is doing... My parents have already paid a visit to a ditch along I-5, along with half the other people attempting that road anywhere near Bellingham. They weren't hurt, thank God, but they tell me the current traffic speed on the Five is about 10-15 miles per hour, and traction is nonexistent. No good!
If a picture's worth a thousand words, then it's really too bad that I don't have a digital camera.
Having grown up in Montana, I can remember when eight inches of snow didn't make that much difference in everyday life. Here in Bellingham, however, where I live on the side of a very steep hill and have armed my car for 'the weather' with no more than a frost scraper, eight inches of snow means "snowed in." The bravest and best, attempting the roads around my place right now, would like as not find their cars propelled ditchward by forces outside the control of man.
Despite every danger and disappointment involved in such weather and its effective prevention of any going out or coming in, there's something lovely and peaceful about looking out at a snowstorm from a warm room. Right now, outside the window by my computer chair, the snow is alternately drifting and driving down in dime-sized flakes, and gusts of wind occasionally come by and sweep clouds of it rather gleefully from rooftops and tree branches.
It reminds me of a Thomas Kinkade painting... only it's the wrong time of day for that kind of lighting, and Thomas Kinkade doesn't normally punctuate his sylvan landscapes with cars, wire fences and concrete abutments... but it's beautiful nonetheless.
Well. Since I am snowed in, I think I'll fix something warm to eat, talk to my best friend, do some reading, and play the piano. Maybe see if I can find some candles and pull out my creche. I feel like Christmas :-D
EDIT: But I sure wouldn't want to be traveling right now, like half of America is doing... My parents have already paid a visit to a ditch along I-5, along with half the other people attempting that road anywhere near Bellingham. They weren't hurt, thank God, but they tell me the current traffic speed on the Five is about 10-15 miles per hour, and traction is nonexistent. No good!
11.23.2006
All I Can Say This Thanksgiving...
...is that I am simply, and deeply, thankful.
Custom, I suppose, dictates the writing of a list of reasons for being thankful. But today, these words are good enough for me.
"Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow." James 1
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you :-)
Custom, I suppose, dictates the writing of a list of reasons for being thankful. But today, these words are good enough for me.
"Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow." James 1
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you :-)
11.16.2006
Stop the Wind, It's Going 60 in a 25 Zone
The one thing about working with computers is that... well, if the power goes down, you might as well stay home. Hence my unusual ability to blog in the middle of a Thursday.
I looked outside yesterday at the wind, blowing red and yellow leaves horizontally--at eye-level--down the street. Then, as several of my coworkers and I finished up lunch, the lights went out.
Since I knew my computer had been on, I ran into my department to shut it down so it wouldn't drain the backup power supply. The usual quiet electric hum over there had been replaced by the beeping of a clear jillion power boxes... :P It took us awhile to shut those down to a manageable auditory level.
May I just say that I love my coworkers? They amaze me. Finding ourselves out of regular work, we pulled our chairs together in groups. Several of us from my department started on Christmas decorations, and we kept lively conversations going for the hour and a half we had till our department head came in and told us it didn't look like we'd have power anytime soon, so we could go home. People that normally talk little at work joined in, making for a spontaneous group-bonding session.
My apartment having maintained power, and a few of us being originally set to leave the company at 5 PM for a concert in Vancouver, I invited said concert-goers over to my house. "It's an adventure day," one of them proclaimed in my living room. We played Apples to Apples, drank tea and ate peanut butter cups, watched the wind go by and enjoyed the unexpected holiday.
All I can say is that I needed what yesterday became. I love my company and my job--it's not that I'd want work to cease every day, but since the outage did happen, maybe it's all right to admit that the impromptu fun totally made my week. And hey, at least it was just wind... it definitely did some damage, but we also had a tsunami alert out yesterday, which, thank God, never materialized.
And I'm definitely going to have to write up that concert... one of the best I've ever attended. If any of y'all have never heard of Over the Rhine, you should really check them out.
I looked outside yesterday at the wind, blowing red and yellow leaves horizontally--at eye-level--down the street. Then, as several of my coworkers and I finished up lunch, the lights went out.
Since I knew my computer had been on, I ran into my department to shut it down so it wouldn't drain the backup power supply. The usual quiet electric hum over there had been replaced by the beeping of a clear jillion power boxes... :P It took us awhile to shut those down to a manageable auditory level.
May I just say that I love my coworkers? They amaze me. Finding ourselves out of regular work, we pulled our chairs together in groups. Several of us from my department started on Christmas decorations, and we kept lively conversations going for the hour and a half we had till our department head came in and told us it didn't look like we'd have power anytime soon, so we could go home. People that normally talk little at work joined in, making for a spontaneous group-bonding session.
My apartment having maintained power, and a few of us being originally set to leave the company at 5 PM for a concert in Vancouver, I invited said concert-goers over to my house. "It's an adventure day," one of them proclaimed in my living room. We played Apples to Apples, drank tea and ate peanut butter cups, watched the wind go by and enjoyed the unexpected holiday.
All I can say is that I needed what yesterday became. I love my company and my job--it's not that I'd want work to cease every day, but since the outage did happen, maybe it's all right to admit that the impromptu fun totally made my week. And hey, at least it was just wind... it definitely did some damage, but we also had a tsunami alert out yesterday, which, thank God, never materialized.
And I'm definitely going to have to write up that concert... one of the best I've ever attended. If any of y'all have never heard of Over the Rhine, you should really check them out.
11.12.2006
True, That
Naomi handed out little cards at small group some weeks back. The cards contained this passage, of which I had only ever read the second half. The first half filled out the picture for me, and today it fell out of my Bible as I was reading. I need add nothing to these words.
"If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.
If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
--C. S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory"
"If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.
If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
--C. S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory"
11.11.2006
Pointless Brainwaving
My mind, right now, contains a perfect jumble of thoughts, all sort of tangled up in each other, and each too scattered to expound upon with any depth.
Anyone who so chooses can blame this fact on my having slept in, and slept hard, till eleven A.M. I normally don't do that, but since I started off this past week tired and never managed to recover, extra sleep had become necessary.
Here, then, are some of the random waves floating around in my head:
1. I'm mainly choosing to post at this particular minute because that celebrity lookalike thing is messing up my sidebar, which annoys me terribly. The faster I can write it off the front page of my blog, the better.
2. One of my coworkers told me the other day, as we crossed paths in the lunchroom, that he enjoys reading my blog, so hi, Dave! Honestly, I’ve been writing since I grew old enough to tell which end of a pencil makes the black marks, so it always makes my day when someone says they like to read my thoughts.
3. This post will probably not be a great example of good writing.
4. After waking up this morning, I finished reading Sense and Sensibility for probably the third or fourth time in my life. It had never been a favorite of mine among Jane Austen's books, but this time I thoroughly enjoyed it.
5. My family laughs every time we watch the movie Sense and Sensibility (the Emma Thompson version is a family favorite.) They say I am just like Elinor. I couldn't ask for a better compliment. I love her. Jane Austen said, in writing Elinor's story, that she had created "a heroine whom no one but myself will much like" but perhaps she underestimated her own flawless ability to create a likeable character even around traits such as reserve, seriousness, and carefulness in judgment. Or maybe she underestimated the likeability of such characters :-)
6. Three or four trips cover-to-cover through a book (not counting partial re-readings) sort of hits a median point for me. The book has passed acquaintance and early friendship, reached good friendship, but in most cases has not quite made it to full emotional intimacy.
7. That measurement can be misleading, though, as I've really only Genesis-to-Revelationed the Bible three or four times despite its many years' residence in my (almost) daily life. My shortest trip through the Bible, however, took me a year and eighteen days, while Sense and Sensibility took me less than a week. I've also had free access to Sense and Sensibility for several years, while my ten months' relationship with Harry Potter has, in its romantic fervor, inspired me to at least three or four trips through books 1, 3, 5, and maybe 6, and two trips each through two and four.
8. If 'they' (meaning whoever does these things) would make a Jeopardy! game show with only two categories, The Bible and Harry Potter, I'd stand a good chance of winning. Most people, not having been raised homeschooled and Baptist, tend to get a lot of the Bible's secondary characters and events mixed up. It always amuses me when the Bible comes up as a category, because I did grow up homeschooled and Baptist, so the conversation tends to go like this:
Contestant: "I'll take Bible for $400, please."
Alex Trebek: "Answer: 'He was the father of Gershom, Kohath, and Merari.' "
Contestant: "Who was Methusaleh?"
Alex Trebek: "I'm sorry, that is incorrect."
Me: "Levi! Sweet! I actually know the right answer to a Jeopardy question! ...or is it 'the right question to a Jeopardy answer'?"
Of course, the proverbial tables are turned as soon as Alex Trebek starts talking about the Simpsons, or Ancient Egyptian History, or... pretty much anything else.
9. No, I am not putting the Bible and Harry Potter into equivalent rank, either in my life or anywhere else. They're just the only two subjects I can think of right now on which I know decent amounts of useless trivia.
10. Cool Harry Potter trivia I learned in a recent re-read through book 1: The inscription over the Mirror of Erised, "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi" is actually an English sentence written backwards. Can't believe it took me so many re-readings to notice that :-)
11. When you wake up at eleven A.M. in November at the 48th parallel (I did have to look that up), you have approximately six hours of daylight. This makes it feel like the sun goes down just after noon.
12. Those eleven hours of sleep have apparently addled my brain, because at this point I'm even running out of random thoughts. Ah well.
Anyone who so chooses can blame this fact on my having slept in, and slept hard, till eleven A.M. I normally don't do that, but since I started off this past week tired and never managed to recover, extra sleep had become necessary.
Here, then, are some of the random waves floating around in my head:
1. I'm mainly choosing to post at this particular minute because that celebrity lookalike thing is messing up my sidebar, which annoys me terribly. The faster I can write it off the front page of my blog, the better.
2. One of my coworkers told me the other day, as we crossed paths in the lunchroom, that he enjoys reading my blog, so hi, Dave! Honestly, I’ve been writing since I grew old enough to tell which end of a pencil makes the black marks, so it always makes my day when someone says they like to read my thoughts.
3. This post will probably not be a great example of good writing.
4. After waking up this morning, I finished reading Sense and Sensibility for probably the third or fourth time in my life. It had never been a favorite of mine among Jane Austen's books, but this time I thoroughly enjoyed it.
5. My family laughs every time we watch the movie Sense and Sensibility (the Emma Thompson version is a family favorite.) They say I am just like Elinor. I couldn't ask for a better compliment. I love her. Jane Austen said, in writing Elinor's story, that she had created "a heroine whom no one but myself will much like" but perhaps she underestimated her own flawless ability to create a likeable character even around traits such as reserve, seriousness, and carefulness in judgment. Or maybe she underestimated the likeability of such characters :-)
6. Three or four trips cover-to-cover through a book (not counting partial re-readings) sort of hits a median point for me. The book has passed acquaintance and early friendship, reached good friendship, but in most cases has not quite made it to full emotional intimacy.
7. That measurement can be misleading, though, as I've really only Genesis-to-Revelationed the Bible three or four times despite its many years' residence in my (almost) daily life. My shortest trip through the Bible, however, took me a year and eighteen days, while Sense and Sensibility took me less than a week. I've also had free access to Sense and Sensibility for several years, while my ten months' relationship with Harry Potter has, in its romantic fervor, inspired me to at least three or four trips through books 1, 3, 5, and maybe 6, and two trips each through two and four.
8. If 'they' (meaning whoever does these things) would make a Jeopardy! game show with only two categories, The Bible and Harry Potter, I'd stand a good chance of winning. Most people, not having been raised homeschooled and Baptist, tend to get a lot of the Bible's secondary characters and events mixed up. It always amuses me when the Bible comes up as a category, because I did grow up homeschooled and Baptist, so the conversation tends to go like this:
Contestant: "I'll take Bible for $400, please."
Alex Trebek: "Answer: 'He was the father of Gershom, Kohath, and Merari.' "
Contestant: "Who was Methusaleh?"
Alex Trebek: "I'm sorry, that is incorrect."
Me: "Levi! Sweet! I actually know the right answer to a Jeopardy question! ...or is it 'the right question to a Jeopardy answer'?"
Of course, the proverbial tables are turned as soon as Alex Trebek starts talking about the Simpsons, or Ancient Egyptian History, or... pretty much anything else.
9. No, I am not putting the Bible and Harry Potter into equivalent rank, either in my life or anywhere else. They're just the only two subjects I can think of right now on which I know decent amounts of useless trivia.
10. Cool Harry Potter trivia I learned in a recent re-read through book 1: The inscription over the Mirror of Erised, "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi" is actually an English sentence written backwards. Can't believe it took me so many re-readings to notice that :-)
11. When you wake up at eleven A.M. in November at the 48th parallel (I did have to look that up), you have approximately six hours of daylight. This makes it feel like the sun goes down just after noon.
12. Those eleven hours of sleep have apparently addled my brain, because at this point I'm even running out of random thoughts. Ah well.
11.07.2006
Because I Found it Amusing
Having never been told I looked like a celebrity (probably because Emma Watson doesn't totally exhibit Hermione Granger's "bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth"), curiosity made me try this:
Left to right, top to bottom: Lisa Kudrow, Audrey Tautou, Norkys Batista, Jodie Sweetin, Woranuch Wongsawan, Hillary Clinton, Alexis Bledel, and Gong Li.
Generally speaking, I'm flattered; there are lots of beautiful women in that collage. But Hillary Clinton... well, it's not that she isn't beautiful. I guess as long as I don't wind up with her politics, or her taste in men, I'll accept that ;-)
Left to right, top to bottom: Lisa Kudrow, Audrey Tautou, Norkys Batista, Jodie Sweetin, Woranuch Wongsawan, Hillary Clinton, Alexis Bledel, and Gong Li.
Generally speaking, I'm flattered; there are lots of beautiful women in that collage. But Hillary Clinton... well, it's not that she isn't beautiful. I guess as long as I don't wind up with her politics, or her taste in men, I'll accept that ;-)
Simon Cowell Goes to Seattle
I picked up a newspaper at work today and read this comment, made by acerbic American Idol judge Simon Cowell in regards to the recent AI auditions in Seattle:
"Seattle is going to be known for something other than coffee this year. They had the worst bunch of miserable singers I've ever seen in my life. It was two days of total misery. And the weather was bad, too."
Gotta know Simon would have something cheerful to say :-D I personally laughed out loud, even though I generally like and respect Simon. I know perfectly well that if they'd screen out all the terrible and deluded hopefuls that make 'good' TV... and awful noises... Seattle could hold her own. But perhaps the rain put all the screeners in a bad mood. He might have a valid point there.
American Idol, coming in January. You'll hear about it all here... provided Mom tapes the Gilmore Girls.
"Seattle is going to be known for something other than coffee this year. They had the worst bunch of miserable singers I've ever seen in my life. It was two days of total misery. And the weather was bad, too."
Gotta know Simon would have something cheerful to say :-D I personally laughed out loud, even though I generally like and respect Simon. I know perfectly well that if they'd screen out all the terrible and deluded hopefuls that make 'good' TV... and awful noises... Seattle could hold her own. But perhaps the rain put all the screeners in a bad mood. He might have a valid point there.
American Idol, coming in January. You'll hear about it all here... provided Mom tapes the Gilmore Girls.
11.05.2006
Because I Needed Another One
Some people collect stamps. Or china. Or memorabilia. Or those state-depicting quarters.
I, apparently, collect personal web pages. First the Blogspot (that's this one, in case anybody didn't know), then the Myspace. Now I have a Xanga, too.
The basic conundrum I faced is that if you want to comment on your friends' sites, and they don't use Blogspot, you have to have a login. When I created my Myspace login, I didn't realize it had made me a whole page (duh) till my best friend sent me a Friend invitation. And hey, if it's already creating a page, well... I figured I might as well get creative too :-D
This week, I finally decided I had too many Xangad friends to not have a login on that Cyberspace planet. So, "Library Lily" joined the Xangan ranks.
Fear not, however, fellow Blogspot-ites. This planet is still my home base and central communication port. You'll hear it all here first.
...sheesh... could I sound anymore dorky?
I, apparently, collect personal web pages. First the Blogspot (that's this one, in case anybody didn't know), then the Myspace. Now I have a Xanga, too.
The basic conundrum I faced is that if you want to comment on your friends' sites, and they don't use Blogspot, you have to have a login. When I created my Myspace login, I didn't realize it had made me a whole page (duh) till my best friend sent me a Friend invitation. And hey, if it's already creating a page, well... I figured I might as well get creative too :-D
This week, I finally decided I had too many Xangad friends to not have a login on that Cyberspace planet. So, "Library Lily" joined the Xangan ranks.
Fear not, however, fellow Blogspot-ites. This planet is still my home base and central communication port. You'll hear it all here first.
...sheesh... could I sound anymore dorky?
Just Finished Reading: Dickens' "Christmas Carol"
As a normal twentysomething American woman, I naturally love reading the British writers. I read them a lot: Dickens, Austen, Brontë (Charlotte), Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Rowling (of course), etc.
I have also seen multiple versions of A Christmas Carol, including Bill Murray's and the goofball play Scrooged. The memory of Jacob Marley dancing, chains and all, to ATC's "Around the World" still makes me laugh. As does the ditzy Ghost of Christmas Present slapping Bill Murray in the face while saying "Sometimes the truth HURTS!"
But... I'd never managed to sit down and read the actual book itself. Maybe because I generally think of it around Christmas, but not until someone else has checked it out from the library.
This year I managed to think of it early. And now I know why it's a classic.
It's just the sweetest, loveliest, most charming little story... ever. Just a simple redemption story of one man's soul. Just a word-picture of the difference life and hope can make to the coldest and bitterest of hearts. And to do Charles Dickens credit, knowing the basic progression and ending of the story didn't spoil it at all for me.
Yes, I do know that the Ghost of Christmas Present showed Scrooge many a merry sight of what Christmas ought to be, not what most people have. But if forever we sentimental fools try to scatter simple, honest happiness wherever we can, no one will be the worse because of it.
I have also seen multiple versions of A Christmas Carol, including Bill Murray's and the goofball play Scrooged. The memory of Jacob Marley dancing, chains and all, to ATC's "Around the World" still makes me laugh. As does the ditzy Ghost of Christmas Present slapping Bill Murray in the face while saying "Sometimes the truth HURTS!"
But... I'd never managed to sit down and read the actual book itself. Maybe because I generally think of it around Christmas, but not until someone else has checked it out from the library.
This year I managed to think of it early. And now I know why it's a classic.
It's just the sweetest, loveliest, most charming little story... ever. Just a simple redemption story of one man's soul. Just a word-picture of the difference life and hope can make to the coldest and bitterest of hearts. And to do Charles Dickens credit, knowing the basic progression and ending of the story didn't spoil it at all for me.
Yes, I do know that the Ghost of Christmas Present showed Scrooge many a merry sight of what Christmas ought to be, not what most people have. But if forever we sentimental fools try to scatter simple, honest happiness wherever we can, no one will be the worse because of it.
10.31.2006
Finally: A Good Movie
After a year and a half, nearly, of mediocre stuff in the theaters--much of which didn't even catch my attention on the Blockbuster shelf--I have finally seen a good movie.
All right, Pirates II was pretty good. X-3 was okay. Neither of them quite lived up to the earlier series installments. I liked Elizabethtown; still haven't seen Cars, much to my chagrin. Failure to Launch and Queen Latifah's Last Holiday were both enjoyable chick-relaxation watches, as was The Lake House, once I managed to understand what was going on in that story.
Overall, though, Hollywood has had such a lame stretch that I've seen only maybe five movies in the theater since June of 2005. If that.
Saturday night, I bottled up my old fears of water and saw The Guardian.
Ashton Kutcher, who usually annoys me endlessly, showed a strength to his acting ability that I've never seen out of him before. Maybe I've watched the wrong movies; Newlyweds just didn't thrill me (actually, I thought it was boring, a bit disgusting and rather less than believable), and of course he played an idiot in Cheaper by the Dozen. This time he actually had a character, and he made something of it.
Kevin Costner did credit to the role of the weathered, tough-but-good, legendary-in-life Senior Chief. He played a man who had both great strengths and weaknesses; a man who had already learned to maximize his gifts and was now learning to minimize weakness and make good on mistakes, all the while dealing with loss.
The story brought out themes of honor, hope, greatness with humility, and the value of life... and besides that, it was just a good story. Well worth the watching.
All right, Pirates II was pretty good. X-3 was okay. Neither of them quite lived up to the earlier series installments. I liked Elizabethtown; still haven't seen Cars, much to my chagrin. Failure to Launch and Queen Latifah's Last Holiday were both enjoyable chick-relaxation watches, as was The Lake House, once I managed to understand what was going on in that story.
Overall, though, Hollywood has had such a lame stretch that I've seen only maybe five movies in the theater since June of 2005. If that.
Saturday night, I bottled up my old fears of water and saw The Guardian.
Ashton Kutcher, who usually annoys me endlessly, showed a strength to his acting ability that I've never seen out of him before. Maybe I've watched the wrong movies; Newlyweds just didn't thrill me (actually, I thought it was boring, a bit disgusting and rather less than believable), and of course he played an idiot in Cheaper by the Dozen. This time he actually had a character, and he made something of it.
Kevin Costner did credit to the role of the weathered, tough-but-good, legendary-in-life Senior Chief. He played a man who had both great strengths and weaknesses; a man who had already learned to maximize his gifts and was now learning to minimize weakness and make good on mistakes, all the while dealing with loss.
The story brought out themes of honor, hope, greatness with humility, and the value of life... and besides that, it was just a good story. Well worth the watching.
10.25.2006
Wednesday Nights
"I love this town," Naomi said to me tonight.
She might as well have read my mind just then. "Me too. The whole Bohemian, funky, offbeat soul of it."
We were standing in the wind and the dark downtown, waiting for a light to change. Our small group had spent the past fifteen minutes walking around in pairs, praying over the city. Praying aloud doesn't come naturally for me, but somehow conviction came over me in the act. Not simply conviction as in knowing what I believe, but conviction as in knowing that I fail in this town--fail to see the needs of others, fail to overcome my innate hesitations and act.
I'm not sure exactly what that means.
After prayer, we all headed into Stuart's at the Market, where I discovered they make superb hot chocolate and we hung around for a spoken-word-only open mic session.
This being Bellingham, I was prepared for pretty much anything, especially politically speaking. Although anyone supporting Bush probably would have been chased out of the market in a storm of fresh produce.
To my surprise, though, the participation didn't really come from the stereotypical angry twentysomething poet, twisting rage and obscenity into tortuous lines of chaos-themed free verse. Justin got up and read a couple of beautifully-worded pieces on the value of a human life and worship. Erland recited "The Road Less Traveled". A mother with her four-year-old son in tow read some of her own work on different themes, as did a girl of about eleven. One neatly-dressed man, obviously experienced at the whole open-mic thing, did offer a piece he'd written about refusing to pledge allegiance to "our blood-stained flag." Another girl, just a few years younger than me, spoke into a microphone for the first time in her life.
Generally speaking, I enjoyed it far more than I'd thought I would. And that piece Justin read called "She's Beyond All This" connected deeply with my heart. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening, though, and one of the most powerful moments for me, came through the words of a gentleman named Gary Wade, who recited a poem he'd written called "I am War."
I will clarify here that I am not a pacifist at all costs. I do believe that there is a time for war--despite the fact that the whole idea of shedding blood is absolutely foreign to me, heart and soul. But this poem spoke to me because it captured, better than most Christians have ever put it, the "wages of sin."
Gary Wade was kind enough to give me a booklet he carried of his poetry afterwards, and it contained the poem. I won't quote all of it (that probably transgresses copyright law), but here's a few lines:
"I am War!
I am the fruit of injustice
sown on fester-ground
where you had not the courage to weed...
I am your reward for tolerating tyrants
and disarming yourselves in front of them.
I am War!
I am your price for greed,
for hate,
for disdain,
for revenge,
and for not caring..."
He pointed at the audience as he spoke. Pointed right at me when he said "For disdain." Do I disdain? Sometimes. Perhaps more as a sin of omission, rather than commission. Perhaps I should have been angry, like a Pharisee, when he pointed at me. After all, he has no idea who I am, or what I've done. But it didn't matter. He might as well point at me; I'm human, I'm guilty as the next man, or woman.
Later, I drove past the Western campus. That school calls to me, begging me somehow to participate in it--the whole aching, rebellious, idealistic soul of it--bringing with me, of course, the Christ who died for every aching and rebellious and idealistic soul in town, starting with this one. And again, I haven't figured out entirely what it means to do anything about that. A lot of my feelings come from my own romantic reverence for the halls of learning.
Not having practiced much today, I had started singing "Panis Angelicus" in my car. As I drove by the school, the words struck me. I don't know Latin, but have researched enough to know that, roughly, part of the stanza works out to "Bread of angels, given to men... Oh, wonderful that the Lord becomes the food of the poor, the servant, and the lowly."
I'm not an evangelist. I can't go to school right now, and have no idea where to start in this town beyond what I already do. But if Jesus is the food of the poor and lowly, God grant me the wisdom and courage to serve to them. In whatever ways he asks.
She might as well have read my mind just then. "Me too. The whole Bohemian, funky, offbeat soul of it."
We were standing in the wind and the dark downtown, waiting for a light to change. Our small group had spent the past fifteen minutes walking around in pairs, praying over the city. Praying aloud doesn't come naturally for me, but somehow conviction came over me in the act. Not simply conviction as in knowing what I believe, but conviction as in knowing that I fail in this town--fail to see the needs of others, fail to overcome my innate hesitations and act.
I'm not sure exactly what that means.
After prayer, we all headed into Stuart's at the Market, where I discovered they make superb hot chocolate and we hung around for a spoken-word-only open mic session.
This being Bellingham, I was prepared for pretty much anything, especially politically speaking. Although anyone supporting Bush probably would have been chased out of the market in a storm of fresh produce.
To my surprise, though, the participation didn't really come from the stereotypical angry twentysomething poet, twisting rage and obscenity into tortuous lines of chaos-themed free verse. Justin got up and read a couple of beautifully-worded pieces on the value of a human life and worship. Erland recited "The Road Less Traveled". A mother with her four-year-old son in tow read some of her own work on different themes, as did a girl of about eleven. One neatly-dressed man, obviously experienced at the whole open-mic thing, did offer a piece he'd written about refusing to pledge allegiance to "our blood-stained flag." Another girl, just a few years younger than me, spoke into a microphone for the first time in her life.
Generally speaking, I enjoyed it far more than I'd thought I would. And that piece Justin read called "She's Beyond All This" connected deeply with my heart. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening, though, and one of the most powerful moments for me, came through the words of a gentleman named Gary Wade, who recited a poem he'd written called "I am War."
I will clarify here that I am not a pacifist at all costs. I do believe that there is a time for war--despite the fact that the whole idea of shedding blood is absolutely foreign to me, heart and soul. But this poem spoke to me because it captured, better than most Christians have ever put it, the "wages of sin."
Gary Wade was kind enough to give me a booklet he carried of his poetry afterwards, and it contained the poem. I won't quote all of it (that probably transgresses copyright law), but here's a few lines:
"I am War!
I am the fruit of injustice
sown on fester-ground
where you had not the courage to weed...
I am your reward for tolerating tyrants
and disarming yourselves in front of them.
I am War!
I am your price for greed,
for hate,
for disdain,
for revenge,
and for not caring..."
He pointed at the audience as he spoke. Pointed right at me when he said "For disdain." Do I disdain? Sometimes. Perhaps more as a sin of omission, rather than commission. Perhaps I should have been angry, like a Pharisee, when he pointed at me. After all, he has no idea who I am, or what I've done. But it didn't matter. He might as well point at me; I'm human, I'm guilty as the next man, or woman.
Later, I drove past the Western campus. That school calls to me, begging me somehow to participate in it--the whole aching, rebellious, idealistic soul of it--bringing with me, of course, the Christ who died for every aching and rebellious and idealistic soul in town, starting with this one. And again, I haven't figured out entirely what it means to do anything about that. A lot of my feelings come from my own romantic reverence for the halls of learning.
Not having practiced much today, I had started singing "Panis Angelicus" in my car. As I drove by the school, the words struck me. I don't know Latin, but have researched enough to know that, roughly, part of the stanza works out to "Bread of angels, given to men... Oh, wonderful that the Lord becomes the food of the poor, the servant, and the lowly."
I'm not an evangelist. I can't go to school right now, and have no idea where to start in this town beyond what I already do. But if Jesus is the food of the poor and lowly, God grant me the wisdom and courage to serve to them. In whatever ways he asks.
10.24.2006
Artistic Responsibility
Normally, I do not criticize the use of exaggeration in art; at least, not if it has some sort of meaning.
Advertising has become an art form, and I can understand that as well. To a point.
Mom recently emailed me a link to this short video on YouTube. As a teacher, she had taken it to school and shown it to her class. The video speaks for itself, so I won’t add to it, except to say as my mother did to her students: She does not exist.
The woman we girls compare ourselves to does not exist. The girl staring seductively out of the glossies into the mind of a man does not exist.
I knew there was tweaking going on, but I had no idea how much, despite having seen Photoshop and similar software packages at work in other situations.
Ladies, if you liked the Evolution video, check out this one too. Mom and I both cried.
Advertising has become an art form, and I can understand that as well. To a point.
Mom recently emailed me a link to this short video on YouTube. As a teacher, she had taken it to school and shown it to her class. The video speaks for itself, so I won’t add to it, except to say as my mother did to her students: She does not exist.
The woman we girls compare ourselves to does not exist. The girl staring seductively out of the glossies into the mind of a man does not exist.
I knew there was tweaking going on, but I had no idea how much, despite having seen Photoshop and similar software packages at work in other situations.
Ladies, if you liked the Evolution video, check out this one too. Mom and I both cried.
I Stand Corrected
They're not jokes. They're facts.
No, not the ones about brunettes. The ones about Chuck Norris. And I have to say that the reigning king of the roundhouse seems to have both a sense of humor and a good heart, as evinced here.
So, does he pass on his skills? No girl likes walking to and from her car after the sun goes down. I could definitely use someone the dark was afraid of :-P
No, not the ones about brunettes. The ones about Chuck Norris. And I have to say that the reigning king of the roundhouse seems to have both a sense of humor and a good heart, as evinced here.
So, does he pass on his skills? No girl likes walking to and from her car after the sun goes down. I could definitely use someone the dark was afraid of :-P
10.23.2006
Almost as Good as Blonde Jokes
...with due apologies to all my blonde friends; the brunette jokes I've heard have been even less flattering to us than the classic blonde jokes are to you...
Chuck Norris jokes.
My personal favorite: "Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs."
What do you mean, you want to hear a brunette joke? If you must know, they range from standard retaliation (What's black and blue and brown and laying in a ditch? A brunette who's told too many blonde jokes) to rather creative (Why didn't Indians scalp brunettes? The hair from a buffalo's backside was more manageable... oh wait, that one might be true) to downright ugly, and as even I have to admit, funny (Why are brunettes so proud of their hair? It matches their mustache.)
Hah, well. "What do we live for," says Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, "but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?" I like laughing. Which is good, because I'm too tired to take anything seriously. I'm going to bed.
Chuck Norris jokes.
My personal favorite: "Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs."
What do you mean, you want to hear a brunette joke? If you must know, they range from standard retaliation (What's black and blue and brown and laying in a ditch? A brunette who's told too many blonde jokes) to rather creative (Why didn't Indians scalp brunettes? The hair from a buffalo's backside was more manageable... oh wait, that one might be true) to downright ugly, and as even I have to admit, funny (Why are brunettes so proud of their hair? It matches their mustache.)
Hah, well. "What do we live for," says Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, "but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?" I like laughing. Which is good, because I'm too tired to take anything seriously. I'm going to bed.
10.21.2006
Something to Dance About
Ring the bells! Part the clouds! Strike up, ye minstrels!
At long, long last, I have home internet again. I can blog! And to put the proverbial cherry on top, I have a working soundcard on a home computer, after going without for at least a year and a half.
I thought about titling this post "It TOOK Long Enough" but there's probably enough impatience in the world.
And, were I not so thoroughly tired, I would probably try to stay up and write something. For now, though, the many blog ideas I've had since posting my last have jumbled inside my head, their clarity hazed over by my own personal internal drill sergeant, who is shouting gleefully in my ear "Get your sheets out of the dryer and go to bed, Olwin, that's an order!" I have no choice but to obey.
Ah, but I've missed this little journal. Be not alarmed. I shall return.
At long, long last, I have home internet again. I can blog! And to put the proverbial cherry on top, I have a working soundcard on a home computer, after going without for at least a year and a half.
I thought about titling this post "It TOOK Long Enough" but there's probably enough impatience in the world.
And, were I not so thoroughly tired, I would probably try to stay up and write something. For now, though, the many blog ideas I've had since posting my last have jumbled inside my head, their clarity hazed over by my own personal internal drill sergeant, who is shouting gleefully in my ear "Get your sheets out of the dryer and go to bed, Olwin, that's an order!" I have no choice but to obey.
Ah, but I've missed this little journal. Be not alarmed. I shall return.
10.07.2006
So, The Past Three Weeks...
I still do not have home internet. At all. The cable modem is supposedly coming soon. If it doesn't come by Wednesday, I'll call customer service at the cable company and ask about it (nicely, of course; I know what CS reps suffer at the mouths of impatient people.) The seven to ten business days they told me to wait have not gone fully by yet. But I feel like Inigo Montoya. I hate waiting :-D
Tonight, however, my parents have generously opened their home to me and my WorldWideWeb addiction. And my heart.
In the past three weeks, I have attended both a funeral and a wedding. Attended isn't the right word--I was involved. The grave holds the body of someone dear to my family and myself (I have been asked not to share details publicly) and I stood up as candlelighter eight days later at the marriage of a good friend.
I cried at the funeral and laughed at the wedding. Which might seem normal. But the terms are misleadingly dull. At the funeral, it took all the strength I had to merely stand still. I wanted to run, hide somewhere where I could burst out crying and not be a distraction or an object of pity or something that needed to be brought under control. Instead, I stood in place, able to keep from running or sobbing aloud, but not able to stop the tears from flooding down my face--highly unusual for me, as I rarely cry. And at the wedding, despite my love for my friend and her husband and my joy at their love together, I spent most of the ceremony choking back an untimely shout of laughter at the whole candlelighting experience, which is a great story. Maybe not quite as funny as the time I fainted off the back riser in the choir during the first performance of a passion play, but funny nonetheless.
What a strange, hilarious, terrible, beautiful world.
The sun shone with all its might today, turning the sky a rich blue. The fall crisp held in the air, and the flame trees have reached the height of their color--brilliant red with a few green leaves left on the lower branches. I couldn't stay inside today. I took a blanket out on my front lawn and read for hours.
Then, I went to see my boyfriend, and we broke up. It wasn't nasty, it wasn't a matter of overstressed emotions or problems with each other. It was the act of two people who cared deeply about each other, loved each other, really--loved enough to be honest and say "This isn't the right thing for us."
There's a strong tenderness in loving someone enough to freely let them go. It sustains me tonight; I know this will get harder before it gets easier. I don't look forward to that, but I know God has good plans for him. And I can't believe that for him without understanding that it must also be true for me.
And I have a rare gift: the ability to throw my laundry in a bag in my car, pack my toothbrush and drive less than an hour to my parents', where welcome unfailingly awaits. Tonight, I definitely needed my mommy and daddy and their newmanic furball puppy. Seriously. That eight-week-old bundle of spastic energy disguised as a baby poodle reminds me of little children buzzed on sugar, or Mark Lowry's old song "Hyperactivity:"
"They can tame the wind, they can calm the sea
But they'll never harness my energy
I'm the poster-boy for hyperactivity
It's not my fault the world's not keeping up with me!"
So, the past three weeks... a lot of living for little Jennifer (whether or not a 28-year-old woman nearly six feet tall can be described as little.) I'll take things rather calmer in the next few, thank you very much.
But, given the option, what would I trade? Certainly not the moments of having loved what I have lost. As a Christian, I believe firmly that God wastes no experience, that it all "means something."
Nor have these weeks been all hard. Kathy got married, and I got to be there for her. I got to spend some time with Donna and Tracy, whom I love dearly and haven't seen in months. My small group has started up again, and we're reading Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz; I adore that book. I've spoken on the phone with a new friend, leaving me with the impression that I just might have a lifelong friendship building with two amazing people. And, spastic energy and all, it feels great to have a dog greet me at this door again.
I also have to admit that it felt great to have my hair done prom-queen style for the wedding. It took sixty-four bobby pins and an ungodly amount of hair product. It looked absolutely fabulous. If anyone ever needs a good stylist in the Edmonds area, Bree at Bellissimo knows her stuff.
How very odd... that sounds just like my recommendation line for photographers in Montana :-D
Tonight, however, my parents have generously opened their home to me and my WorldWideWeb addiction. And my heart.
In the past three weeks, I have attended both a funeral and a wedding. Attended isn't the right word--I was involved. The grave holds the body of someone dear to my family and myself (I have been asked not to share details publicly) and I stood up as candlelighter eight days later at the marriage of a good friend.
I cried at the funeral and laughed at the wedding. Which might seem normal. But the terms are misleadingly dull. At the funeral, it took all the strength I had to merely stand still. I wanted to run, hide somewhere where I could burst out crying and not be a distraction or an object of pity or something that needed to be brought under control. Instead, I stood in place, able to keep from running or sobbing aloud, but not able to stop the tears from flooding down my face--highly unusual for me, as I rarely cry. And at the wedding, despite my love for my friend and her husband and my joy at their love together, I spent most of the ceremony choking back an untimely shout of laughter at the whole candlelighting experience, which is a great story. Maybe not quite as funny as the time I fainted off the back riser in the choir during the first performance of a passion play, but funny nonetheless.
What a strange, hilarious, terrible, beautiful world.
The sun shone with all its might today, turning the sky a rich blue. The fall crisp held in the air, and the flame trees have reached the height of their color--brilliant red with a few green leaves left on the lower branches. I couldn't stay inside today. I took a blanket out on my front lawn and read for hours.
Then, I went to see my boyfriend, and we broke up. It wasn't nasty, it wasn't a matter of overstressed emotions or problems with each other. It was the act of two people who cared deeply about each other, loved each other, really--loved enough to be honest and say "This isn't the right thing for us."
There's a strong tenderness in loving someone enough to freely let them go. It sustains me tonight; I know this will get harder before it gets easier. I don't look forward to that, but I know God has good plans for him. And I can't believe that for him without understanding that it must also be true for me.
And I have a rare gift: the ability to throw my laundry in a bag in my car, pack my toothbrush and drive less than an hour to my parents', where welcome unfailingly awaits. Tonight, I definitely needed my mommy and daddy and their new
"They can tame the wind, they can calm the sea
But they'll never harness my energy
I'm the poster-boy for hyperactivity
It's not my fault the world's not keeping up with me!"
So, the past three weeks... a lot of living for little Jennifer (whether or not a 28-year-old woman nearly six feet tall can be described as little.) I'll take things rather calmer in the next few, thank you very much.
But, given the option, what would I trade? Certainly not the moments of having loved what I have lost. As a Christian, I believe firmly that God wastes no experience, that it all "means something."
Nor have these weeks been all hard. Kathy got married, and I got to be there for her. I got to spend some time with Donna and Tracy, whom I love dearly and haven't seen in months. My small group has started up again, and we're reading Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz; I adore that book. I've spoken on the phone with a new friend, leaving me with the impression that I just might have a lifelong friendship building with two amazing people. And, spastic energy and all, it feels great to have a dog greet me at this door again.
I also have to admit that it felt great to have my hair done prom-queen style for the wedding. It took sixty-four bobby pins and an ungodly amount of hair product. It looked absolutely fabulous. If anyone ever needs a good stylist in the Edmonds area, Bree at Bellissimo knows her stuff.
How very odd... that sounds just like my recommendation line for photographers in Montana :-D
9.26.2006
Coming Soon
More posts. And actual contact from Jenniferworld, if you happen to be waiting on that. I promise.
In a few days, hopefully I'll have my new home internet system up and running.
Till then, all internet access for me gets limited to my work computer and occasionally my parents'... but my work computer won't even let me on Myspace... big shocker, that.
Much as I like my job, I don't like staying past five-thirty--not even to send emails or blog or comment on blogs or otherwise feed my internet addiction. So... for now, I'm going home.
Talk to y'all soon!
In a few days, hopefully I'll have my new home internet system up and running.
Till then, all internet access for me gets limited to my work computer and occasionally my parents'... but my work computer won't even let me on Myspace... big shocker, that.
Much as I like my job, I don't like staying past five-thirty--not even to send emails or blog or comment on blogs or otherwise feed my internet addiction. So... for now, I'm going home.
Talk to y'all soon!
9.21.2006
Boots and Dragons
My roommate has finally gotten around to reading Harry Potter for the first time. She’s about to finish book 6.
Of course, I got jealous watching her have all the fun. So, tonight I picked up book 1 again—the one I carried everywhere with me for a week in my first experience with it, reading and re-reading, absorbing the power and humor and courage of the story, hating the very thought of taking it back to the library even to exchange it for book 2.
Reading it tonight, I got a sudden surprise. A line of Hagrid's reminded me of someone:
“Hagrid,” said Harry, panting a bit as he ran to keep up, “did you say there are dragons at Gringotts?”
“Well, so they say,” said Hagrid. “Crikey, I’d like a dragon.”
It made me laugh. Like children everywhere, I looked up very much to Steve Irwin—it wasn’t possible not to; he lived like he enjoyed life. And he ‘went out with his boots on’, doing what he loved; it seems that he’d have wanted that. It just happened way too soon.
It was good to smile at the memory of him tonight. And I have a feeling that had they lived in the same world, the tempestuous but gentle half-giant and the bright, wonder-filled family man from Australia would have found a lot to talk about in their love for their different monsters.
There it is again... that odd mix of happiness and sadness. That juxtaposition has apparently been decreed for me this week.
P.S. All right, Chris. No fair posting about Harry Potter when Blogger still won’t let me comment on your blog! Especially not fair putting up such a good post. I should have more to say later.
Of course, I got jealous watching her have all the fun. So, tonight I picked up book 1 again—the one I carried everywhere with me for a week in my first experience with it, reading and re-reading, absorbing the power and humor and courage of the story, hating the very thought of taking it back to the library even to exchange it for book 2.
Reading it tonight, I got a sudden surprise. A line of Hagrid's reminded me of someone:
“Hagrid,” said Harry, panting a bit as he ran to keep up, “did you say there are dragons at Gringotts?”
“Well, so they say,” said Hagrid. “Crikey, I’d like a dragon.”
It made me laugh. Like children everywhere, I looked up very much to Steve Irwin—it wasn’t possible not to; he lived like he enjoyed life. And he ‘went out with his boots on’, doing what he loved; it seems that he’d have wanted that. It just happened way too soon.
It was good to smile at the memory of him tonight. And I have a feeling that had they lived in the same world, the tempestuous but gentle half-giant and the bright, wonder-filled family man from Australia would have found a lot to talk about in their love for their different monsters.
There it is again... that odd mix of happiness and sadness. That juxtaposition has apparently been decreed for me this week.
P.S. All right, Chris. No fair posting about Harry Potter when Blogger still won’t let me comment on your blog! Especially not fair putting up such a good post. I should have more to say later.
On Another Note… a great long belty one
I hear Clay Aiken has a new CD out. Which means that I now have to go get it. Which should be followed shortly by a review.
This album consists mostly of classic covers, if I have my facts straight; hopefully that means they gave him better songs than last time. Not one song on his first album was truly up to his incredible voice. Although I liked a couple of them anyway.
Nobody, I might add, has ever made a better Christmas album than Clay did. At least, in my opinion.
This ought to be good!
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