Garland.

Merry Christmas, folks! I wish you times of reflection and discovery with your loved ones this holiday. May the "eyes of our hearts" be opened, willing the world around us into the peace that passes all understanding.

brain food

currently subsisting on: tofu, gyoza and spinach soup (garlic chicken or veggie broth)
currently feeling: cold


addicting, healthy, and warming -- what more could one ask of a food?

Boundaries

As much balm as challenge,
Bones broken, unset.

There's no rhyme but reason
For the ones that I've met.

I have traveled, I've crumbled,
I lurch and I climb,

Falling over them, vaulting past,
Peering through. Blind.



What purpose, this effort?
At what cost, this grace --

To hold in my hand
your inscrutable face?

God gives us courage, but
Eve lends us style:

Bequeaths to us impulse,
the innocent's guile.

Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her

I get a kick out of webpages that try to secondguess my interest or intentions. Gmail's little "sponsored side links" usually amuse; I remember several email series with Bryan, long before we were dating, that invited me to "Come! Wake up with the SUN!" (solar-powered alarm clocks) while advising, less than surreptitiously, "Are you in love with your best friend? STOP!" (He's Just Not That Into You, later foisted on me by a family member who shall remain nameless. Mom.) An email from Katie M. about meeting for brunch on our trip to Connecticut in January warns me: "Prepare to be shocked." To help deal, it offers a great deal on an "Emotional Toolkit."

Amazon's equally charming, although this list of recommended features, handpicked especially for me based on my recent purchases, has me guessing:

Brother PT1500 label maker (oh, totally!)
Toastmaster 1770 (hand mixer -- need)
Invest Your Life in Things that Matter
The Wretched of the Earth, by Fanon (own it -- he's a post-Marxist polysci/critical theorist)
and....

....

Histories of the Hanged. Lest you wonder too much of my taste, it's apparently a tale of corruption in the Kenyan justice system. Still, the title kind of gives one the heebie jeebies, no?

My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. - C.S. Lewis

Start with the first source.
The primary. The true.
I set my lines in water and expect
them to hold fast,
hold fast, and wonder
how long such meridiens can last.

Tonight there was a good unquiet, the kind of restlessness in which, sometimes, I hear things. Lately, what I hear are prayers -- the other ones people must have had (and must still be -ing) prayed over me. That's a poor way of describing it, but it is two A. and M. I will let my own inconsistency slide, as usual.

I wish I could say that feeling like praying meant that I've actually been carrying it through, but sometimes just the "feeling like" of it suffices. I let it make me think I've done my share.



The night comes on, doesn't it?

Well, here is a prayer. It's an old one, but I still mean it. A lot. When I was little, I used to calm myself by imagining that God had an actual hand that, His being God, was just big enough for a five-year-old me to crawl into. I was a literal, if imaginative, child, and songs about "the palm of His hand" suited my need for dark. For Quiet. For a place to become and to be safe in the dark. I can't pretend that that same image works for me anymore, but all the same...In this particular moment, I fall asleep gladly in the unknown, one step closer to the rest of this small life, and thank you for being the God of its Becoming, the God who Became, and the Spirit who beckons.

In spite of all of my unholy racket, You are still the deep and the abiding.

A Few of My Favorite Things

One very nice thing about finals at Christmas is that, when tired of studying, one can always gift shop online and feel good about procrastinating. Under this logic, it's taken but a few days for ebay.com, etsy.com, and I to become fast friends.

Perhaps this explains how I know that it takes a mere 3 hours and 27 seconds to be perilously, fatally, and hopelessly outbid for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Complete Season One.

Grrrrrrrr.

What's Klingon for "Back off!!!"?

Overheard at My House: Finals Week Boiled Down to the Essentials

"The nice thing about going to the gym is that it gives my pajamas a chance to breathe."

- Rebecca, Fellow Legal Beagle and Roomie No. 4

Stop the Presses!

Sorry to bother, but this is tres cool. First up for me: Bleak House by Dickens. Been wanting to get my grubby little paws on this sucker ever since Victoria's tour of legal London last January.

Sleepless in .... Boston?

Will someone please explain to me why it is sixty degrees and raining in Boston?! How is one to get a Christmas tree in this type of crazy weather? How is one to dance with abandon to the sweet, sweet sounds of Lionel Richie's "Little Drummer Boy"? (Answer: same as always. Take it slow, round out those hips, keep it real cool, sister.) How is one to bake cookies and play Scrabble whilst sipping hot mulled cider?

Ah, New England. Ye never cease to amaze and befuddle. In any case, a very merry Friday to all!