The Difficulties of Writing

One of the things I have been taught about writing is that it is necessary to orient your readers to the meaning of any quotations you may choose to include in your text. The meaning of and the reason for the quotation may seem obvious to you, but is not necessarily as obvious to your reader.

Okay, I accept that. But I am not very good at doing it.

Just now, I spent a good bit of time attempting to explain what Chesterton says about "the balance of apparent contradictions." I would type a fragment of a sentence, contemplate it's meaning, and then erase it because it is difficult to speak for someone like Chesterton.

My Dad has occasionally said that when it comes to quotations, most statments are not so well made that they cannot be stated in another way, so quotations should be chosen wisely. I keep that in mind as I write, but too often in the sort of work I prefer, it is the cadence and the rhythym of the sentence I am trying to convey, not just the meaning, because the cadence and the rhythym inform the meaning in some way. In those cases paraphrase or explanation is inadequate, yet my understanding of the meaning is probably unclear.

This is just another one of the problems of writing I am not sure how to solve.

By the way, I just about give up on formatting anything properly in blogger (see below).

Health is even better than Truth

In Chapter 2 of Orthodoxy Chesterton convinces me that I am not insane:

"A sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman(19)."

This chapter (The Maniac) would have been very helpful to me while I was still in graduate school. Chesterton explains that modern intellectual theories are deficient in that they seek to explain everything, while still leaving so much out.

"The ordinary man had always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic...He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction to go along with them (23)."

Note to Self

You shall see below that I am full of questions this morning. This post is more in the way of a note of intention to myself.

The other night as I was cleaning up my kitchen I listened to the second volume in the Songs from the Voice collection called, Son of the Most High. It occured to me as I listened that this CD actually qualifies as Christmas Music as it contains songs that are a fitting way to be reminded of and inticipate the celebration of Christ's birth.

Several months ago I ordered one of the books that is part of the voice project. It is titled the last eyewitnesses: the final week with the following explanation on the cover that John relives Christ's last week before the crucifixion. This book was written in collaboration, and at the time I considered reading it and then writing a review for our church newsletter. The long and short of it is that I haven't read the book, but it recurrs to my attention now because of the Son CD. This is all very interesting too because Michael recently stated that he thinks we skip too quickly over the crucifixion to get to the ressurection, which we consider the good part of the story. Michael says that Christ probably spent a great deal of time preparing himself for and anticipating the sacrifice, and that we should do so as well. The reason why he links this to advent approaching Christmas I do not entirely understand, but remembering this book brings it back into my mind. Perhaps reading it, or reading in it, could be a beginning to materializing what my husband suggests. It's definitely worth an investigation.

If only I could organize my reading a little better. How many books can one person start in a week and really understand what is communicated by any of them?

What Did Lewis Mean?

It's been a while since I read this. C.S. Lewis has not been high on my list of reading material recently, although Stanley Fish references him as a scholar occasionally, Robertson Davies may or may not intentionally allude to him, and I read the first couple of chapters of An Experiment in Criticism not long ago. Somewhere in his writing Lewis states that there is a danger in too much introspection. What was the context of that statement, and what actually did he mean?

An Undisciplined Question

These are the types of questions you ask your friends when you are in college and involved in a campus ministry:

How can I justify encouraging materialism in clients as an interior designer? Am I really doing them a service if I do things that encourage them to cling to the comforts of this world? Am I not betraying my own principles if I assist others in indulging idolatry?

There were good answers to these questions, I know there were, but I thought of them (the questions) again as I wrote about my new kitchen the other day.

Prudence and good stewardship dictate that we plan ahead for any and all future financial endeavors. The idea that you make car payments to yourself in advance of purchasing a car rather than making those same payments to someone else after the fact only makes good sense. But I was wondering, as Christians, what right do we have to purchase more than the minimum to meet necessity? What right do I have to put together a dream kitchen, or make more than the minimum investment in the property value of my home when those very same funds could be used instead to support five children in an orphanage in Calcutta, to cite a recent example.

I don't mean to say this in judgement of anyone. So many of our financial decisions are made between ourselves and God. I only mean to question what my own philosophy in this regard should be--and I am being hypocritical in the making because I crave stability and forethought, and I have very expensive taste as well. I would love, love, love to have one of those beautiful homes I see on tv. I would love to buy only the best groceries without concerning myself with the cost. I would love to have the best fabrics and coffees and wines. If I had the money for those things, what would I do with it? I much prefer to keep my money in my wallet instead of giving without qualm.

My faith is defective because I do not really and truly trust God to provide my basic needs, and because I fear I would not be satisfied with having provision for only those most basic needs. And I know without a doubt that I am not alone in this.

I hope my readers understand, and that I am expressing only what I mean to express. This post is part confession, and part message to the church that such questions are out there whether or not we ask--and the answers are not simple because of our position in, though not of, the world.

Walking 'Round the Block

Parker and I took a walk yesterday after my boy stepped in some animal refuse. He was playing in some of the leaves that are currently carpeting our front yard, while I put a little time in on the raking. As I raked I wondered, what is my responsibility as a yard-owner in a neighborhood without covenants? I've never had control of my own yard before, and while I am not currently in a position to do very much about it, what are the generally accepted rules for being a good neighbor?

I took the opportunity of our walk to take pictures of Parker.

This is the favorite bear that I mentioned. Parker is barefoot because of the stinky shoe occupying a favored position in the bathroom even as I type. I felt the weather was warm enough for barefeet since it was after noon, and Parker didn't seem to complain.

I took this picture later that evening, as you may be able to tell from the tomato sauce lingering around my baby's mouth. It's a little blurry, but just look at that maniacal grin that makes Parker's daddy laugh so much. It is definitely time for a haircut.

Reading my Own Writing

If you've written much yourself, you realize that at times reading your own writing is almost unbearable to contemplate. It's the same way I used to feel back in my law office days. By the time I had finished preparing and copying and witnessing a closing, I had spent so much time handling the file that I could hardly stand to touch it again, much less put the file in an easily referenceable order.

Today I do not feel like reading my own writing. So if there are mistakes in what is posted below they'll simply have to wait until tomorrow. Or never. However, since I am uninterested in my own writing this morning I'll leave you with the following quote from one who, according to Philip Yancy, may have rarely read his own writing.

[That I explain myself further] was perhaps an incautious suggestion to make to a person only too ready to write books upon the feeblest provocation (2).

and

I have written the book, and nothing on earth would induce me to read it
(5).

from Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton

Putting Baby to Bed

I rocked Parker to sleep a little while ago. We sat in the chair with one of his arms wrapped around me, and his favorite bear clutched in his hand, and I sang songs to him, mostly songs with words like this: "My baby, he loves a little black bear with a brown ribbon, little black bear with a brown ribbon, my baby, my baby, my baby." I sang "Eidelweiss" and "Dance to Your Daddy" to him as well, but it was the one I made up and repeated over and over again that I enjoyed the most. I've always enjoyed making up tunes that sound either jazzy or Celtic, and that seems to work well for Parker.

When I put him in his bed, he immediately rolls to his stomach and either tries to sit up or else pulls his bottom up into the air and goes to sleep. This is the cutest thing, and my mother tells me that her children often stuck their bottoms up the air when going to sleep. It's one of those little details of which you have to take a mental snapshot, because an actual camera would only ruin the affect.

I don't have a picture of Parker and his favorite bear. It's a picture I haven't taken yet. The bear is little and soft and filled with beans, and I am forever surprised that Parker hasn't ruined the little satin bow yet. He likes to carry the bear in his teethe by tag or bow. This is the bear he grabs when we go in to get him in the morning, and it is the one we make sure he has when it is time for him to go to sleep.

It's funny how he's had this bear for almost a year now (it was a gift from Michael's parents last Christmas), he's only been aware of it for the last couple of months, and now it is his best friend in all the world. Not long ago it was a little rubber lizard we thought that Parker had to have at all times. This little black bear with the brown satin bow will be the one that really is irreplaceable.

I mentioned above that Parker likes to walk around with a toy hanging by its tag from his mouth. This soccer ball is one of his favorites with which to do this.

Still not a picture of his favorite toy, this is another example of how you might encounter Parker walking around our house in the middle of the afternoon. These were both old photos from earlier this month.

Kitchen Improvements

I promised in an earlier post ("Cooking Basics") that I would add photos of my current kitchen once it was clean enough to photograph. For some reason, keeping up with the kitchen has been particularly hard this week, while those who visit my house regularly can tell you that I don't like for it to stay messy for long. My sink is currently full of clean dishes, but that's as close to clean as I'm going to get this morning. Time to photograph:

This is 100 times better than what I had before (see POSSUM!, posted earlier this month). There were aspects of my old kitchen that I really liked, especially after we decorated some while I was pregnant with Parker, but really and truly, that old kitchen was a nightmare. I liked the view of trees outside the window that reminded me of campus ministry campouts in college. I loved the wonderful light that came in through the window, and the fact that there were birds almost always flying about. I liked my ragged cobalt blue composition tile floor, and the fact that I could open the door and let fresh air in whenever I liked. I didn't, however, like to spend very much time in there, which really is a problem when you're trying to be sensible in your spending. Writing about it this way, though, should help me to remember. The new kitchen doesn't have the best layout I've ever seen. However it does have a built-in dishwasher, a double sink (!), and countertop work space.

You can't tell from the picture, but there's a bookshelf in the space between refrigerator and oven. The door to the outside is nice, but I need to get a screen door for it so that I can open it in warm weather and not worry about Parker crawling out. I like it pretty well the way it is now, but one of my goals for the future is to tap into some of my interior design training and redesign the whole thing, probably with assistance with IKEA's online kitchen design program. I'll do that on paper and then Michael and I can decide what the priorities are, and how much we'll have to save to implement the design. I said I have interior design training, but I never really worked in the field, so I don't have good experience to draw on. I hope that what I have is good taste and good sense to come up with something truly functional. The more I cook in this kitchen, the more I'll know what actually needs to be done. For now, I'm just happy to have a kitchen of my own, and I think it's pretty besides.

Now I Know Why That Song Means So Much to Me

When I was a little girl, and even as a teenager, sometimes in the early morning I would sit in front of the glass of my parents front door, looking out on the sidewalk and the trees and think, "This is a perfect moment. What I am looking out on at this moment is perfect beauty, and it is a moment I will never experience again." As I looked out my dining room window a moment ago, I had the same thought, and I was reminded of those perfect moments from the past.

I wish I had a photo of that view. The moment is so brief, and I cannot stand there, looking out that window for more than a moment.

There are many perfect views and perfect moments. Sometimes I notice them and sometimes I do not. I'm reminded now of the song Michael linked to last week:

http://www.waterdeep.com/songs/whether

My favorite line from "Whether or Not" is this one:

I think about myself so much
It kinda makes me ill
I prob'ly oughta let my cup
Just fill up
But overfill

In my mind and memory that last line is "Not just fill up, but overfill." At different times in my life I have realized that those perfect moments, that really are such ordinary moments, are part of the filling up and overflowing. They are a perfect gift from God.

Cooking Basics

Sometime after Parker was born I picked up Julie Powell's book, Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, at the library. The book was inspired by this woman's blog where she shared her experience cooking her way through volume one of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It was entertaining reading, and her one-by-one in-order approach made sense to one who has always been slightly overwhelmed while slogging through books like Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book.

Anyway, Jamey shared that she rarely uses recipes and over the weekend she kindly loaned me How to Cook Without a Book by Pam Anderson. It's funny that I had picked the book up before, at the same time as Julie & Julia, and while the book seems to be everything I have ever wanted in a cookbook, my own tiny apartment kitchen was hardly up to challenge.

Times they have changed. My current kitchen, while not ideal, is much more suitable to the tasks involved in actual daily cooking. I realize that I'll have to take it slowly and really try and digest what Anderson is suggesting. I cannot simply absorb the information through my fingertips as I would certainly prefer. A wonderful woman named Alice once suggested that I use my academic strengths to tackle some of my non-academic problems (cooking, housekeeping, etc.), and that is how I mean to proceed.

Pleasant coincidences: 1. A lot of the content of the book, I think, will help me remember and build on things Melanie taught me earlier in the year. 2. Anderson notes that she prepared a recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking as one of her early cooking experiments. 3. She also notes that her mother, grandmother and aunts would sometimes turn to The Auburn Cook Book when they needed refreshing on a formula, a book I was given as a wedding gift just over seven years ago. I never figured out how to reduce that book to formulas on my own, but now, thanks to Anderson and de Simone, the idea has been implanted. I think it is interesting how book reference and relate to each other even across genres.

Note: I plan to add a photo of my new kitchen later, that is assuming I ever get it clean enough to photograph again. My old kitchen was posted earlier this month when I wrote about the Possum in my kitchen.

Excerpt from *Certain Women*

I remembered my Book Journal this morning and so I've been reading and writing in it. A few years ago I read Certain Women by Madeleine L'Engle. I remember this passage from time to time. It is a pivotal moment in the book:

"When Norma was young, she had a terrible time--she nearly died. I
spent several days with her after--after a very bad time in my own
life. Norma told me that when she was well and able to think again, the
wise woman of her tribe told her that she was at a crossroads."

Sophie looked across the table enquiringly.

Emma smiled at Sophie. "The wise old woman said that one road led to
a funeral and the other to a wedding. Norma said, 'I chose the wedding
(35).'"

Afraid of Knives

I bought a Spaghetti Squash from Walmart on Friday as I noted in my exciting Walmart post. The idea was to cook it up for Parker so he could get more yellow vegetables into his diet. Why Spaghetti Squash? Because I thought I recalled reading about Spaghetti Squash amidst my recent recipe forage, or maybe it was in one of those wonderful email lists to which I have subscribed. Anyway, now that I possess the beast, I can't find where I read about it.

I am therfore preparing the squash according to the baking directions found on this website: http://www.fabulousfoods.com/features/featuring/spagsquash.html. I've pierced the sucker with fork and knife. The fork didn't seem to work all that well. The skin is thick and the fork's tines don't seem to reach very deep. The knife led me to the title of this post. I haven't cut myself this morning, but I found myself becoming more and more fearful of the blade, so I gave up on the knife in short order. I haven't put the squash in the oven yet, and I haven't figured out which of the recipes I am going to try, but I'll keep you posted. What an adventure!

Update (1:12 pm):

The squash is out of the oven. It smelled wonderful while cooking--more like a dessert than I would have expected, slightly sweet and buttery, even with nothing added to it. It's been sitting in its dish for about 20-30 minutes now, but it's still too hot to the touch for me start working with it. It has shriveled slightly while cooling, and the skin feels thick to the touch. Parker and I may choose to take a walk instead of sitting around here waiting for the squash to cool.

Update (3:00 pm):

I really am a novice with this stuff. Around 2:30, once Parker was down for his nap, I cut open my squash and found out why it's called spaghetti.

The seeds were a challenge. I started by pulling the seeds out with my fingers because it didn't look like the type of network I could simply cut out with a knife; squishy, slimy and not very affective. The fork seemed like a more likely option. Still, there has to be an easier way to do this. These are not the kinds of things they ever think to tell you. The flesh came away easily once the seeds were removed, and I now have two quart sized bags of spaghetti squash to my credit.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with them.

Question of the Day, Pizza Edition

We tried Julie's Calzone recipe last night (http://treasuresandjuls.blogspot.com/2007/11/post-2-recipes.html) and it was delicious, probably a new family favorite as Michael is a huge cheese fan. I don't typically like ricotta, and used the Cottage Cheese substitution. It mixed in beautifully with the other, drier cheeses, and probably provided some needed moisture to help the melting (I'm speculating)--I'm trying to figure out how cooking works now, not simply what to do.

This recipe was the first time I have ever added herbs and actually recognized their effect on the flavor, a really big deal for me. I really could smell the Oregano this time (as separate from the dried garlic), and tasted the difference between before and after, even though I was still using the same aged spices that have been in my spice-cabinet for years.

The one problem I had was, having never used pizza dough before, refrigerated or homemade, I didn't handle it properly. I unrolled the dough from the container just as I would do with refrigerated crescent rolls, but the shape looked funny and I couldn't see how to make it into a large circle. Instead, and without consideration, I mushed the dough together, and that did not work very well. I wound up using my roller to try to flatten the dough out, but never really succeeded. The result was a crust that was much too thick, and not nearly large enough to contain the entire filling. My Calzone came out, not as a fritter like half-circle, but more like a lump of shapeless bread.

The taste is what really matters, I realize, but I'd like to improve my presentation for next time. How is refrigerator pizza dough supposed to be handled?

Music I Am Listening To Now

I have always had sort of a love-hate relationship with Christian Music. I loved it in college. I used to pray to God that I might please, please have a life in ministry oriented music. Pages in my college journal are devoted to this desire, but as yet a life in music has not materialized. I have given up on singing for the past several years, and while my husband IS a musician, he does not often find opportunities to play outside Grace Church. Also in college, I ran a program on the University Radio Station for a time. That is where I first fell in love with a band called Waterdeep.

Don and Lori Chaffer head up Waterdeep. They have recorded solo albums and worship albums and Waterdeep albums. One year when I was in college we brought them here, to Tuscaloosa, to perform with 100 Portraits at what was then The Ivory Tusk.

So the record Parker and I have been listening to lately is called Please Don't Make Us Sing This Song (Various Artists). It is part of a project Don and Lori are currently involved with called The Voice (http://www.hearthevoice.com/), and every song on the recording is based in scripture. The title song is taken from Psalm 137 and says, "If I can't remember [my true home] may I never sing a song again." Lori Chaffer performs it and it is beutiful, but then, I am always and forever more biased in Lori Chaffer's favor.

Two-Buck Chuck, and How I Know I'm Not An Alcoholic

I was given these two bottles of wine sometime approximately a month-and-a-half ago, and tonight I finally opened one of them. It was an inexpensive Cabernet Sauvignon affectionately referred as "Two-buck Chuck," bottled for Trader Joe's. It is very--grapey--and I don't know whether that's supposed to be good or bad, but at least I can tell what it is I am supposedly drinking for a change.

So tell me, what is good wine supposed to taste like? The experts are of no use in this area, because they already know what they are looking for in a good wine. They know good taste from bad, a familiarity with which I am not currently endowed.

What does dryness mean? What does "sweet" mean when it comes to wines? It apparently doesn't mean the same thing it does when referring to un-fermented grapes, or orange juice, my typical drinks of choice. It isn't as though I were actually trying to impress anyone with my taste in alcoholic beverages, is it? Because if that were not the case it would only matter what I liked, and not what was considered "good" by anybody else.

I gladly admit a weakness for sparkling beverages in most cases.

I mock myself and try to make a joke at the same time. I try this often, and it is difficult to tell, when writing, whether or not the joke succeeds.

(My policy is to never drink any alcohol until after Parker has gone to bed for the night. I don't want to take a chance on his needing to nurse too soon after alcohol has been consumed. This has knocked me out of enjoying the free wine at Northport's Art Night on more than one occasion.)

Brainy Authors and Their Appeal

A few months ago I began reading C. S. Lewis's Experiment in Criticism. I was trying to do an analytical reading, which is probably why I got no further than Chapter 2. Then my friend Elizabeth brought me a book by Robertson Davies that I had requested. More accurately, the book was a compilation of some work published posthumously. Lewis and Davies had some strikingly similar things to say about tastes in reading material. I also see a similarity between Davies organic-seeming theory of reading (in which you discover new authors by reading other authors) and echoes of a Robert Scholes essay I love entitled A Fortunate Fall? Thus it seems that the authors who appeal to me are operating from similar philosophies. Does that seem to suggest anything concerning their appeal?

It was because of my infatuation with Robertson Davies and my recent reading of Wilkie Collins (a contemporary and friend of Dickens) that I was recently inspired to try Dickens again. Unfortunately that particular experiment resulted in a wash since I chose what was probably the perfectly wrong book to begin. Pickwick Papers. The stars of Little Women loved, so why not I?

More on the referenced authors later, or so I hope.

Question of the Day

How often should I change the sheets on my baby's bed?

Because of the way the crib is constructed, changing the sheets on the bed can be quite the challenge. In most instances I have to pull the crib away from the wall entirely to get the job done, which is complicated by the fact that I store my supply of diapers and wipes under Parker's bed. (The job has become easier with practice, of course.)

When Parker was younger the sheets didn't seem to me to be a big deal because Parker slept on his back, and rarely did his diaper leak onto the bed. I didn't worry much about the hair he was losing, and it was hard to reach over and into the bed to deal with bedclothes. Now Parker prefers to sleep on his stomach, which leads to drool marks on otherwise clean smelling sheets. If you think I am slovenly in this respect (and sometimes I suspect it myself), see the quotation near the end of "Favorite Books, Part II" posted earlier today.

What kind of sheet experience have you had with your own babies, and then--what do you recommend?

Favorite Books, Part II

For several years now I've been trying to get through Diana Gabaldon's novel, The Fiery Cross. Now, when I say "trying to get through" in this instance, I simply mean that it has taken me a long time to read the whole thing, with several false starts along the way. I adore this woman's writing. She has a way of bringing scenes, usually set in the 18th century, to life that I have never experienced elsewhere in fiction. When I read her novels I feel as though I am reading about real people and real experiences. They are very well researched in that when she has to write a scene where a man gets kicked in the balls (please, please excuse the expression) she finds out, from first-hand sources, what it actually feels like first.

When I read her books I always wind up reading passages from them aloud to Michael; I describe the plot to him because I can't help talking about it. She's that good.

I tried to read The Fiery Cross when it first came out and only got about 350 pages into it, partially because I had read the first four novels in the series almost straight through, and the level of detail Gabaldon includes can be exhausting. Not to mention the fact that each of her books is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages long. I also think now I may have been unready to read this book because Parker hadn't come into our lives yet. There are scenes in the book involving infants that are much more meaningful now that I actually have a child of my own.

Last night I read a sentence that I wanted to share. Claire, so often the narrator in these books, is thinking about her contribution to the household:

"As for sweeping the floor, polishing the windows, dusting, and general drudgery of that sort . . . well, if women's work was never done, why trouble about how much of it wasn't being accomplished at any given moment?"

This is an attitude which I have adopted as my own.

I always have to issue disclaimers when I recommend these books. The story is about a woman who travels through time to the 18th century and marries a Scottish Laird. Sounds like sappy romance novel material already, doesn't it? But the series is so much more than that. The first book in the series really does read like a romance novel, including lots of sex and violece, so if you have reservations about reading that sort of material (and some of my friends I know do) you may want to avoid the series anyway. On the other hand, Gabaldon is an excellent practitioner, and if you enjoy historical fiction, the series is a must read. Within the 18th century the characters travel from Scotland to France, to the Caribbean, to the New World. They participate in wars and battles and hunts, as well as the "drudgery" of boiling laundry, extracting abcessed tonsils, and coffe and whiskey-making in the wilderness. I can't do the books justice here, and would love to see what Kathi (showing here as David L.) has to say about the series. The last book of the series is currently on my shelf, waiting to be read, and once that is done I will probably have to start all over again.

Grocery List, Grocery Shopping Challenges

Last week I posted something regarding the problems I have making shopping lists and getting the shopping done. It's a problem that has hounded me since the beginning of my marriage, just over seven years ago.

Julie, of Treasures&Jules, provided a detailed response that can be found at http://treasuresandjuls.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-i-cope.html. She also provides links to a couple of websites I hadn't seen before. Thanks, Julie!

Another Question of the Day

(Note: Since I'm writing to a mixed audience, I don't intend to make breastfeeding a common topic of discussion, even though it remains an important issue in my life. However, occasionally questions need to be asked.)

Parker is almost 14 months old now, and as such, he is able to drink cow's milk in place of breast milk or formula. It has only been in the last couple of days that he has shown much interest in drinking milk through a straw.

So here's my question:

How much milk would he be drinking if he were getting all of his daily milk from a cup?

This becomes a crucial question as the price of milk increases, and Parker and I get closer and closer to a semi-total wean.

Walmart and my One-Year-Old Do NOT Mix Well

Parker loves to get out. I've taken him to Sam's Club several times in the company of my mom, and there he has a wonderful time. Walmart seems to be a different story.

Yesterday I had the dubious pleasure of visiting Walmart not once, but twice. I had the opportunity to go a third time in twelve hours, but chose not to take advantage of the opportunity. Some part of my mind thinks this is a funny story.

We all piled in the car yesterday morning in time to drive Michael to work, drop him off, and head directly to Wal-mart. Parker probably spent a total of 35 to 40 minutes in the car, which of course means that he was yawning by the time we reached the store. At 8:20 a.m. I knew that we had some time before he would absolutely have to go down for a nap, but the boy was already tired: difficulty #1.

I've been trying really hard to be careful what I spend on groceries, because all the country's living expenses are going up and up and up. This means that I check the per unit pricing as I make decisions concerning which brands to purchase. This also means the grocery shopping takes a bit longer these days than it otherwise might. Unfortunately Parker and careful choosing do not mix well. I wasn't trying to exasperate the boy, but it was unavoidable. Approximately two-thirds of the way through my list I realized my poor, sweet, darling, adorable baby could stand it no longer. Even though I hadn't purchased applesauce yet, a current staple around our house, I had to get out of that store as quickly as possible, for his sake: difficulty #2.

Now, I realize that for some it is common practice to a) visit Wal-mart more than once in a single day, and/or b) visit Wal-mart during afternoon hours, but it is not my practice because I tend to be a little socially claustrophobic when there are too many people packed into the same isle. Under those circumstances I get confused, and have more difficulty in making even simple decisions. Also, I had been watching the gasoline guage on my car, and while I had a whole tank, I was painfully aware of the movement of the dial.

By the time Parker and I made it home, I got him fed and down for his morning nap, I was already wiped out. I barely had enough energy to put the groceries I had already purchased away. Therefore I sat on the couch and watched Boy Meets World virtually the entire time he napped, only pausing to empty the dishwasher from the night before.

I now had a decision to make. I could a) make a second trip to Wal-mart that afternoon to get the rest of my groceries, which trip was absolutely necessary because there were still some staple items that needed to be replenished for meals the next day. I could otherwise b) wait and go back the next morning. I was opting for a, but by the time Parker woke up and I got lunch into the both of us it was already after 2:00.

I decided to get it over with. Parker and I piled into the car, and at the first opportunity I turned the wrong way onto Loop Road. I must have been thinking too hard about my friend Heather's house, and so didn't realize where I was driving: difficulty #3. There was probably a way to get to Wal-mart from that end of Loop Road, but I couldn't figure it out, so I wound up having to turn the car around and retrace my steps, all the while obsessively watching the gas guage. By the time I had made it half-way to my destination I realized that Parker was yawning again. I toyed with the idea of making another loop and heading home or to a playground for Parker, but since I'd already used so much gasoline (and braved so much school traffic) to get where I was, I determined that I simply couldn't afford it. So we visited Wal-mart for the second time.

Parker did much better this time. It helped that we ran into three different sets of people we knew, which was encouraging. I managed to get the rest of the items on my list (save two).

Our difficulties, however, were not over. About the time I made it home and unloaded my groceries from the car I realized two things. There had been a little old lady in line ahead of us who had had some problems in purchasing her groceries. First, she made her check out to the wrong store. Next, she walked off without a bag containing toothpaste. The chashier who checked me out found the toothpaste. She did not discover the bag that traveled home with me. I didn't find it until I had driven all the way home. Also, I didn't realize at the time, although I almsot noticed in line, that the cashier had mistaken my spaghetti squash, which cost $.98, for a melon, which cost $3.50: difficulty #4. By this time, I had had enough, Parker was really late for his nap, and I was about to have to leave the house again, this time for the rest of the evening.

I worried about that little old lady occasionally for the rest of the evening and even for a small time this morning. I feel so badly for her as I imagine what she must feel because she left a bag of groceries behind. What if she was operating on a tight budget? What if it took her a long time to get her groceries in the first place? You know, of course, that if I just took the time that I've worried, and used that time to pray for her, we both of us would be a lot better off. And of course, writing the whole story down is the first time the idea has even crossed my mind.

In the end, Parker had a fun evening with his grandparents, Michael and I enjoyed a night out, and my pantry and refrigerator are pleasingly full. Additionally, the house looked great by the time I got home (they watched Parker at our house), and I had a very relaxing ending to a frustrating day. The grocery part, however, is not an experience I am anxious to repeat.

Favorite Books, Part I

One of my favorite books is Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene. I read it just a few years ago and haven't had a chance to go back and read it again, but it is wonderful. The last time I was at the bookstore I found a compilation that had a nice smattering of selections from his writing. I can neither recall the name of the book, nor find it on-line at the moment, even though I know I've seen the book listed on Amazon.com before. How frustrating!

Anyway, the book contained a lovely excerpt from Monsignor Quixote in which the Monsignor and Sancho, the Communist Mayor of Toboso, discuss how they came to travel together. I wish that I could simply let you read it for yourselves, because summary sometimes does not have the impact of fiction. The Monsignor explains that it is the sharing of doubt that really brings the two of them together.

Like I said, I can't do it justice. Paraphrase can sometime involve a flattening rather than an expanding of subject matter. Doubt. Doubt is a huge component of faith. Faith would not be faith without the presence of doubt, and doubt seems to be most seccessful at driving us to God.

Instead of frustrating myself further, I'll simply include an excerpt from another part of the book. I sent this out to friends during my initial reading because I found it haunting, like so much of Greene's subtly spiritual work. In this scene the Monsignor and Sancho have just left a theatre in which they've seen a pornographic movie called "The Maiden's Prayer" (Don't worry; it's tastefully written (and edited). I only hope I'm not horribly violating any copyright laws by reproducing this much of the text without permission):

"I was afraid you might be shocked, father, but it was you who chose the film."

"Yes. By the title. But I don't understand what the title had to do with what we saw."

"Well, I suppose that a maiden's prayer is to find a handsome young man to love."

"That word 'love' again. I don't believe that Senorita Martin [St.Theresa] prayed for anything like that. But all the same I was impressed by the silence of the audience. they took it so seriously that I was really afraid to laugh."

"You wanted to laugh?"

"Yes. It was difficult not to. But I don't like to offend anyone who takes a thing
seriously. Laughter is not an argument. It can be a stupid abuse. Perhaps they saw things differently from me. Perhaps it was beauty that they saw. All the same, sometimes I longed for one of them to laugh - even you, Sancho - so that I could laugh too. But I was afraid to break that total silence. It would hurt me if in church when I raised the Host someone laughed."

"Suppose everyone in the church laughed?"

"Ah, that would be quite different. Then I would think - I might be wrong of
course - that I was hearing the laughter of joy. A solitary laugh is so often a laugh of superiority."

That night in bed Father Quixote opened his volume of Saint Francis de Sales. He still found himself worried by those scenes ... in the cinema - worried by his failure to be moved by any emotion except amusement. He had always believed that human love was the same in kind as the love of God, even though only the faintest and feeblest reflection of that love, but those exercises which had made him want to laugh aloud... Am I, he wondered, incapable of feeling human love? For, if I am, then I must also be incapable of feeling love for God. He began to fear that his spirit may be stamped indelibly by that terrible question mark. He desperately wanted comfort and so he turned to what Sancho had called his books of chivalry, but he couldn't help remembering that Don Quixote at the last had renounced them on his death bed. Perhaps he too when the end arrived...

The dreaded question mark was still stamped on his spirit when they set out next day. Rocinante [Monsignor's automobile] was positively skittish after her stay in the garage and complained not at all when their speed mounted to forty - even forty-five - kilometers an hour, a speed which they only obtained because Father Quixote was deep in his unhappy thoughts.

"What is wrong?" Sancho asked him. "Again today you are the Monsignor of the Sorrowful Countenance."

"I have sometimes thought, may God forgive me," Father Quixote said,"that I was specially favored because I have never been troubled by sexual desires."

"Not even in dreams?"

"No, not even in dreams."

"You are a very lucky man."

Am I? he questioned himself. Or am I the most unfortunate? He couldn't say to the friend who sat beside him what he was thinking - the question he was asking himself. How can I pray to resist evil when I am not even tempted? There is no virtue in such a prayer. He felt competely alone in his silence. It was as though the area of the confessional box and the secrets which it held had extended beyond the box itself and beyond the penitent to include the car he sat in, even the wheel under his hand as they drove towards Leon. He prayed in hissience[?]: O God, make me human, let me feel temptation. Save me from my indifference.

[?] is because I don't know what this word was supposed to be. Like I
said, it's been a while since I read the book.

Why the General Prejudice Against Jazz?

Every now and then I come across a disparaging comment concerning Jazz, which just happens to be our family musical genre. In a book I read a few years ago (genre: pop novel), a female character chooses Country Western over the jazz her boyfriend plays during meal prep. She doesn't just choose Country Western, she also makes a negative comment concerning jazz in the process. Yesterday afternoon, I saw the beginning of a television show set at a highschool. In this scene jazz was being played behind an information fair style booth, and two female characters make an even more disparaging comment--about jazz.

I understand that jazz is different from other musical genres popular today. It's roots are in Blues, and it is much more closely related to classical music than it is to pop. It takes more attention to appreciate than other more widely commodified forms. People don't complain about jazz in the same way that I complain about Adult Contemporary (AC); in most cases they are more insulting with less cause. Most of what I've encountered is similar to the remark I heard during my last trip to Barnes and Noble, "What kind of Barnes and Noble is this; it's cold in here!" This remark was more disparaging of Tuscaloosa than it was of Barnes and Noble, and maybe that is the point.

Various Thoughts concerning My Life as a Homemaker

1. Do you think I ought to cancel the email newsletters that I never actually intend to read? Every time I check my yahoo email account there are newsletters that I mark as read, or quickly open, without ever clicking the links or even glancing over what the emails contain. Examples of this: Creative Homemaking, Gooseberry Patch, Lowe's Home Improvement Creative Ideas, American Shutterbug Photo Tips, Baby Center Bulletins. There's probably lots of wonderful information there that I never really receive because I don't take the time to even look at a large part of my email.

I have, in the past, had this problem with magazines as well. I'd get a magazine, look at it maybe twice, and then add it to the pile in the corner where I would feel guilty about the backlog. Guilty that I wasn't prepared to throw them away, not guilty that I hadn't read them.

2. Why do I so hate to make grocery lists? I put them off and put them off, coming up with all sorts of other things to do than make up a grocery list. There are certain things I already know I need to put on the list, such as toothpaste, coffee, a drain plug for the tub, but the actual list I will not make. Part of this may be because grocery shopping is a monumental task repeated on a regular basis. You who have found your rhythm in this area may no longer have the problems with it that I do.

This is a picture of me trying to plan a shopping trip:

I pull out cookbooks looking for recipes that I think I might be inclined to make. They can't have too many ingredients, can't involve anything unusual like Hoisen Sauce, can't require very much chopping--you get the idea. Very few recipes seem to qualify, and in the process I become distracted, discouraged, disgruntled, etc. I have never made any single recipe enough times to have it's processes mapped out in my head.

Let's assume I've figured out what I want to cook for the week. I then arrange to have the car at a time that isn't Parker's naptime or mealtime, and doesn't interfere our time together as a family. I also prefer to do this at a time when I am unlikely to be accosted in the parking lot by someone selling magazines, or scamming for twenty dollars.

Think about the amount of effort and physical energy needed on an average shopping trip. I noticed this particularly while I was pregnant and energy was even more limited. You battle traffic just to get to the store, park your car, and probably hike to the front door assuming you are shopping at Walmart. You have to wander through the store looking for the items on your list; you bend, stretch and lift in the process of filling your cart. Once you've made it to the front of the store, you still have to unload all of your purchases onto the conveyor belt (I like to group like items as I do this so that the cashier can load the bags more efficiently), then if you are shopping at Walmart you still have to lift all of your groceries from the conveyor belt back into the cart a second time. The you push your purchases to the car to load them again. By the time you make it home, you've already probably handled the same groceries four separate times, and then you get to unload them again, and put them away. This doesn't even include the handling that has to be done once the groceries are home, such as cutting packages of meat into smaller portions to freeze. If you think about it, a simple trip to the grocery store involves a huge amount of effort.

All of this has been recently complicated by the fact that I only have access to the car for a limited amount of time each week. Now that Michael is no longer coming home for lunch each day, that access has become even more limited. This means my home life needs to become even more organized that was previously necessary.

You who do this on a regular basis should congratulate yourselves. This is a very good work that you do.

Bookstore Wars Revisited--because I've been meaning to comment on the previous post all week

I visited Barnes and Noble a total of three times in the first week the store was open. I don't expect this to be a continuing trend, but I have thought that it might be a good place for me to spend an hour once a week for the sake of a change of scenery, and perhaps the opportunity to do more writing. I still have an incomplete in Theory of the Novel hanging over me, after all, assuming I ever actually go back to the University.

Last Sunday as I was trying to return a slightly overdue item to the public library before church, I couldn't get the problem out of my head. I was listening to a story on NPR concerning the lack of American long distance runners competing on the international level, and so the sports analogy has stuck with me.

What does BAM do the moment the rumor is confirmed that B&N is coming to Tuscaloosa in 2007? At that point have they already been defeated so that all they can do is maintain their current level of business until that fateful day arrives? In that case hasn't the owner of BAM in Tuscaloosa already defeated him or herself?

Surely entrepreneurs do not go into business hoping that their major competitor never makes their way into town. You are right, BAM will probably go out of business. Tuscaloosa recently lost all competitors when Cobb Theater opened a few years ago. The Bama Six held on for a short time as a $1.50 theater, but even they eventually folded. The remodeling BAM did not long ago seems a poor attempt at improving their image. I don't know whether or not this was a "global" change, or only a local attempt.

There was something else I wanted to say about this but I've totally lost it. And considering I'm supposed to be recovering from a cold, it's already way past my bedtime. That's got to be what Michael is thinking at this very moment.

Television Trivia

One of my favorite TV shows in Little House on the Prairie, which Michael and I have been watching on DVD over the last several months. I really didn't go in expecting to enjoy it as much as I have, but I have in fact loved it.

Did you know that the little boy who plays Willie Olsen, one of Laura Ingalls constant enemies, is in fact brother to Melissa Gilbert who plays Laura Ingalls herself? I thought that was pretty cool.

We're only in Season 3 right now, and are at a distinct disadvantage knowing what we do about Mary Ingalls. We keep expecting to see the episode in which it happens, and there are so many serious things that happen to Mary or the other children that we are kept in constant suspense.

Question of the Day, Political Edition

I'm apparently getting it all out now, making up for my lack of writing over the last couple of days, and not bothering to save anything for next week. In the interest of being controversial, I'll post a certain political Question of the Day.

What attributes make Hillary Clinton a viable cadidate for President of the United States?

In all seriousness, I'd like to know what makes her presidential material. I don't support her at this time, but still I'm interested in hearing the arguments in her favor. I know there has been some concern that certain voters might support her candidacy simply because she sets a precident as the first female to run for Commander in Chief. Surely that is not the only evidence in her favor.

I am uncomfortable posting this question because I don't want to pit people against one another and politics almost always becomes one of those kinds of topics. Still, I'd really appreciate some input. Let us then talk about this in hypothetical terms only, and if anyone has concerns about being misunderstood in a more or less public forum, send me your answer via email instead.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

I read this book last week, and I promised my brother that I would post some my thoughts on it. It wasn't the most enjoyable reading I have done recently.

I first started thinking about this book upon seeing the movie The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in which Dorian Gray was a character. I had of course heard of the book before then, but didn't know anything about it. More recently a Dorian Gray character appeared in a book I enjoyed by Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear, which is literature based parody of the detective novel. In The Fourth Bear Dorian Gray is a used car salesman who sells our hero, Jack Spratt (a person of ambiguous reality), a car which never sustains any visible damage no matter how it is abused. A painting of the car shows damage instead. Jasper Fforde is an interesting fellow, and has a cool website at http://www.jasperfforde.com/.

Now for Dorian Gray:

The book reads like a play, which isn't surprising considering that all of Wilde's other works were plays. I don't know whether or not he wrote any poetry. It was a little unnerving, to me that Lord Henry sounded like Rupert Everett in The Importance of Being Earnest in my mind. The book was slow to get started because Wilde had to set up the relationship between three major characters, Basil Hayward, the artist, Lord Henry, the unrecognizedly malicious influence, and Dorian Gray, the beautiful foppish sap. I was relieved that the novel was short. I have little desire to discuss the homoerotic elements of the story that Wilde critics seem to be obsessed with. They are there, and they are obvious, enough said.

Dorian Gray is essentially a modern day Solomon, lacking Solomon's wisdom. He tries everything, denying himself no pleasure, and encourages others to try these pleasures with him. Fortunately or unfortunately for the reader, Dorian's activities are mostly hinted at. One murder, and his involvement in several suicides are obvious exceptions to this.

The part of the book that interested me most was the part in which Dorian blames all of his evil deeds on the artist who painted his portrait, rather than the man who encouraged his vanity and hedonism. He goes so far as to acquit Lord Henry of any blame, though Lord Henry is the one who feeds Dorian's imagination with his double talk and backtracking, as well as his choice of reading material. Lord Henry almost always claims the opposite of whatever good sense or morality would dictate. The artist is the one man in the story to attempts to speak the truth in love, and what does he get for it? Murdered, and the body disposed in ashes.

In this story, evil definitely begets evil, and even Dorian's late attempts at being good turn themselves to more evil ends.

There's some deep analysis to be done there, though I find that I'm not particularly interested in doing it. I don't understand the critics claims that The Picture of Dorian Gray is actually a aestheticists manifesto rather than a cautionary offering. It's a shame to remain at the level of summary, knowing as I do that too much summary is a criticism often aimed at undergraduate writing, and as a sometime graduate student I am supposed to do something better than that.

The long and short of it is, I was ultimately disappointed in the book. It didn't meet my expectations and will not find a place on my recommended reading list. The film adaptation of Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, however, is great fun, especially since Colin Firth and Dame Judi Dench have leading roles.

British Television, My Favorite Genre

I love British television. Back when I lived with my parents and was able to receive public television, I used to watch all of the Britcoms that came on Saturday Nights: Are You Being Served, Keeping Up Appearances, Red Dwarf.

One night at my parents house I caught the 1978 Royal Command Performance of a television series called The Good Life, released as Good Neighbors in the United States. I found it captivating. The show was about a suburban married couple who disavow the comfort and security of conventional employment and instead become "self-sufficient." The reality is that while they have become independent of utilities and grocery stores and the like, they remain very much dependant on the help and encouragement of their next door neighbors who remain in the usual world that is the antithesis of their own. Tom and Barbara Good, the title characters, were adorable as, in this particular episode, Tom Good tried to make provision for a retirement that loomed twenty or so years in the distance.

I found that Netflix had the complete series 1-3 available in their catalogue, and somehow convinced Michael to give the series a chance. I told him I wouldn't make him watch it with me, but he eventually saw enough episodes to agree that it was a worthwhile viewing experience. He occasionally quotes a line here and there to make me laugh. Netflix now has Series 4 available through their "Watch It Now" feature, which I was so pleased to discover a week or so ago. It includes that Royal Command Performance I mentioned, as well as the final episode of the series in which the Goods are vandalized, and tempted to give up until Barbara reminds Tom what a good, if difficult, life it is.

I love the support the characters give one another. The next door neighbors are very important in the show, but Barbara Good, played by Felicity Kendall, is absolutely adorable--she is the one who attracted me to the series in the first place. The show aired from 1975-1978, right around the time I was born.

Formatting Issues

I seem to be having problems with my formatting this morning. so I've inserted stars between paragraphs in my recent post. I hope it isn't confusing; it would probably be more confusing if I left my paragraphs to run together.

Please note also that my posts are appearing out of the order in which I've authored them today. There's a lengthy post I began days ago on postmodernism that has shown up on the blog under an old posting date, the day I began thinking about doing the post, as a matter of fact. I most certainly did not write the possum post at 3:00 in the wee hours this morning, but I did make a note of it at that time since Michael was under the house looking for signs of animal life as described therein.

Update:

Problem has been solved, at least partially, I guess. The postmodernism post still appears much lower on the page, when I actually did the bulk of the work on it this afternoon.

POSSUM!

You must be thinking, what a pretty kitchen--she must have spent an absolute fortune on it. This photo is from the old apartment where we spent our first seven years as a married couple.

The week before Parker was born, I found a baby possum in my kitchen utensil drawer. It happened on the Tuesday before I was to be induced on Thursday.

That morning I heard a noise from under the kitchen sink. It sounded as though something were getting into the garbage can we kept stowed under there. As I was waiting at the time for my mom to pick me up to go to my drs appointment, I didn't take the time then to investigate. I didn't have another thought about it.

In the afternoon I went into the kitchen to do something; I don't remember what. I opened the drawer next to the sink, pictured here, and there I saw the single eye of a creature looking up at me. I'm surprised the neighbors didn't hear my scream, as I immediately proceeded to close the kitchen drawer with my foot. I've never been so startled before or since.

It was only a baby possum, and my dad was able to come and remove it from the kitchen fairly quickly. I remember this morning because in the night we heard noises coming from the vicinity of the bathroom, which adjoins Parker's room in the new house, just as it did in our old apartment. Michael went out in the night to investigate and found a possum sheltering itself from the cold in our basement and chewing on insulation surrounding the pipes under our tub. He said to me, "You won't believe what it was." In the end I'm just glad it didn't wake Parker so that we were all able to get a little more sleep before morning.

Poor Little Runny Nosed Boy

Parker has an encrusted nose this morning, and I can see where his lips and nose are getting red from all the rubbing. I'm saving my political question for later (if ever), so here's my question for moms and dads: What do you do to give your little ones relief?

I wonder whether the encrusted snot on his upper lip is protecting or irritating the delicate skin underneath. I put a little chapstick on his lips this morning, which as you can imagine wasn't very effective. I put a little Aveeno Baby Lotion on the tip of his nose, though he thought I was trying to give him something to eat.

He looks pretty pitiful. What can I do to protect his face from chapping?

The himidifier in his room should help some. He won't stay still long enough for me to put saline drops in his nose.

Still Sick

If you've missed me part of this week it's because I have a really bad cold. I've had to have extra help the last couple of days to take care of the boy. The good news is I now know he doesn't mind going off to the grocery store without me. His Granna took him for a little while yesterday and he didn't cry at all. That's a great relief.

Parker has had the run of the house since Wednesday. He's gotten into all kinds of stuff. Coins, Cds, blinds on the windows, the DVD player, and of course papers, papers, papers. Luckily I got him away from the coins before he could decide to eat any of them, and now they have been placed out of his reach. The blinds I can retract, and hang the pulls above his head. The bathroom is a little more difficult to control. He knows how to turn the water on in the tub, but the hot water is the only one he can reach. This is an area for constant vigilance. We usually keep the door to the bathroom shut. This is more difficult now that the weather is so cold, because the wood has shrunk. The next attempt will probably involve a gate.

My Little Physicist (or Mechanic, Engineer, Garbage Man)

Parker loves to spin just about anything. He does it with his balls, his blocks, his linking bugs, his stacking rings, and even with a little jar of baby food left over from the ground up days. He's been working on it almost constantly for the last couple of weeks, and he's very good at it.

I'd like for him to know the principles behind spinning things. It would be good for him to know that there's a name for what is happening, and there are rules governing the spinning object's behavior.

My mom commented last night that none of her children ever spun things, so I asked Michael this morning how it came about. Michael started spinning things for Parker back in July. We were at the beach and Michael was trying to find new ways to entertain him. He didn't seem all that interested in playing with the stackable rings, except chewing on them, so Michael spun one, and that apprently is where it all began.

I figured out myself a while back that a jar of peanut butter makes an excellent spinning top, but it never occured to me to teach Parker to spin himself.

Parker is so blessed to have a daddy who plays with him.

Housecleaning Day

I declare today a housecleaning day.

As I sit and rock my baby before naptime, I think of all the things I could/should be doing, like watering the outside plants (after all, my husband has put a lot of time and effort into providing a water spigot and hose in front of the house to allow this), washing up the dishes from last night before the water in the sink gets cold, folding the dried clothes and starting the next load to dry, etc. At the same time I'm hoping I can write a good post today, respond to those comments requiring a response, decipher a lengthy essay by George McDonald, and make enough headway into The Pickwick Papers to determine whether I am going to continue reading or not. Just thinking about this list tells me there is no way I could possibly be bored. Of course the problem is doing very many of these things without exasperating myself or Parker in the process. The amount of attention Parker requires at any given moment drives me to watch television in the late afternoon instead of doing those things that will actually provide a measure of peace.

Instead of sitting here writing, I should be washing dishes right now, or cleaning the bathroom--or something. There is always something.

I require a certain amount of order in my life to maintain sanity. Now that I own my own home (or at least have a financial relationship with a bank that allows me to believe I own my own home) and have a child to care for I find myself compelled to make my bed every morning. There's something about having a made bed that gives everything else in the house a perceived control.

Update:

I didn't wind up getting that much done. What a surprise. Besides making the bed, I caught up on the laundry (washing, drying and folding--no ironing), cleaned the dishes in the kitchen, vacuumed the living room rug, and swept up around the fireplace. I ultimately gave up on Pickwick, and the outside plants remain unwatered. That's actually enough for one day, I suppose, especially considering the stuffy nose that developed mid-afternoon. Parker and I are both suffering from it.

Post-modernism in it's most accessible form

In labeling my posts I have been using the term "metanarrative," by which I mean a narrative about the act of creating narrative. Meta- often means "beyond" (as in meta-physical "beyond" the physical), and I find that metalinguistics certainly refers to language about language according to The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism. I will continue to use "metanarrative" in this way, because writings about writing, and stories about stories are some of my very favorite things.

But "metanarrative" has another, probably more common, meaning as well. It refers to the stories or narratives used to explain the world around us. My dad and I were talking about postmodernism not long ago, which has everything to do with metanarrative. So does structuralism, post-structuralism, feminism, colonialism, patriarchy, and virtually any sort of critical theory that I can think of.

I'm trying to be all erudite and technical here, but I'm really only posting this stuff because I think it's interesting and useful, and because I like the clarity of the following introduction to Jean-Francois Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition.

This is an excerpt from Literary Theory: An Anthology, published by Blackwell and edited by Rivkin and Ryan:

"Jean-Francios Lyotard's The Post-Modern Condition (1979) announced a new moment in cultural history called 'Post-Modernism.' Post-Modernism is skeptical regarding reason, sees technology as an instrument as much of destruction as of progress, and rejects the premises of industrial society. Lyotard also characterizes Post-Modernism as skepticism toward what he calls 'metanarratives.' By that, he means stories about the world that strive to sum it all up on one account. The Post-Modern temperament finds such conclusive stories unsuited to the world. Instead, according to Lyotard, Post-Modernism favors seeing the world in more rhetorical terms as a field of contending smaller narratives, where people strive to make their point of view and their interests paramount by making their narratives more convincing."

"Post-Modernism is faulted for not taking a stand on issues of value. All values are topics of debate, and the debate should, according to Lyotard, continue endlessly. The only wrong consists of closing off debate. Values, its detractors contend, must be decided. And while all issues or problems facing society can be endlessly debated, at some point decisions need to be made regarding what values shall prevail. According to Lyotard, many such decisions are indeed made, but they usually consist of an assertion of non-rhetorical power by those in a dominant position materially in society. And such decisions always close off debate and preclude further story-telling, further rhetorical contest."

Of course the problem with rejecting all metanarrative in favor of no-narrative is that it is impossible. Interesting stuff, nonetheless.

The Difficult Life of a One Year Old

Parker almost made me cry this morning. He did not want his diaper changed (removed, fooled with), and I was trying to get him ready for a bath. He used to lie there so sweetly (calmly). These days I have to throw a washcloth over his eyes and play peekaboo to keep him distracted.

We were once so spoiled! Ah well, it helps that he is as cute as can be.

Great to Have a Washing Machine; Dryer's pretty cool too.

Someday I'll write about how great it is to live in a house now instead of an apartment. There are all sorts of advantages and I hope I will continue to recognize them as such. Right now I need some really practical advice concerning a very old practice: hanging clothing on a clothesline to dry. Pretend I don't know anything about it, because as a kid I had virtually no interest in matters that are of utmost importance to me now.

Is there any difference between hanging clothes outside to dry in summer versus winter? How long should the clothes be left out in the sun? Are wooden clothes pins better or are plastic? Any ideas on how I can get both Parker and the wet laundry outside safely? Any clothes pin storage solutions in mind?

I don't have a clothesline yet, but I'm looking forward to getting one.

I'm interested in saving money on laundry in other ways as well. When I use my dryer, I know it's better to dry the clothes on low heat because this causes less wear and tear, but I wind up running it two to three times at thirty minutes each. Would I save more energy using a sensory dry on medium heat, or what? Because there will be days when I have to use the dryer. I am soon to be on the market for a new laundry cleaning agent because we're about to stop ordering from the company we always got our detergent from. Which detergents do you like, and do you prefer liquid or powder.

Anything else I ought to know that I haven't thought to ask?

Bookstore Wars

Parker and Granna and I recently made a trip to the new Barnes & Noble. Unsurprisingly I almost immediately found a book I had been looking for for months, The Rhetoric of Fiction, by Wayne Booth. I couldn't afford to actually buy the book at full retail price--I'll either buy it used through Amazon.com or else wait and see if I get my own copy for Christmas--but holding the book in my hand, and knowing, through actual perusal, that it really was the kind of book I was looking for was wonderful.

I've been worrying about the bookstore issue lately. What is Barnes & Noble going to do to Books-a-Million's business. I don't generally like Books-a-Million, because they only ever carry the latest or most popular books by any given offer, but I'm still concerned about their future. Just as I am also concerned about the future of various shopping centers in town since the new really-nice shopping center has opened up. Other shopping centers are already losing business as shops move to the more attractive location and it hasn't even begun to fill up yet.

It doesn't effect me either way. I'm not willing to pay retail, so neither one is likely to get my discretionary dollars.

Some customers will continue to use Books-a-Million to avoid the crowds, I'm sure, or because they have a grudge against the competition (because they don't like Starbucks's public relations policies, for instance). Books-a-Million may have its good points too. Michael says that competition is always good for the consumer. I'm just curious what BAM can do to market itself better, besides the remodeling they have already done. Parker and I visited them on Wednesday, before we ever went to B&N, and Parker found a sock puppet there he really liked.

So this brings up another question of mine. How do you think the internet ordering market-share is distributed between the old standby Amazon.com, BAMM.com, Barnes&Noble.com and the others? What others are there?

Being a Mommy has destroyed my ability to read Horror Fiction

I'd rather read than write today. I just finished reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, and am trying to start The Pickwick Papers. All of the Charles Dickens I have read up to this point has been on the dark and depressing or serious end (Great Expectations, the beginning of Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol) and so I'm looking forward to experiencing something a little different. I expect to encounter something along the lines of P.G. Wodehouse. It will be interesting to see what I actually find, and how it compares to my expectation.

When I first read about Dickens last novel Martin Chuzzelwit in a Jasper Fforde novel, I thought it was some sort of literary joke (it's such a funny sounding title), like so many of Fforde's jokes are. That's how up on the Victorian era I am. I've enjoyed Wilkie Collins since just before Parker was born. Robertson Davies identifies him (Collins) as a second-rate author, but also says that it took a great amount of skill to be even a second-rate author in those days. Flannery O'Connor once said that if you could only learn to write poorly enough, you could stand to make a great deal of money.

There are so many books I want to read--I can never seem to focus on just one at a time. I have to have at least three going at any given moment. I've recently had to give up one of my favorite authors, though: Steven King. Having a child makes it increasingly difficult to read horror fiction. I started reading Cell (rhymes with Hell, the books jacket tells us) last weekend and found that I simply couldn't do it. I can no longer read about such a world without imagining my own son in it, therefore I can no longer read about such a world. It is just too terrifying. It's funny that I never really found his books to be particularly frightening before.

And Parker's awake now. That means it will be a while before I get to pick Dickens up again.

What's your process?

Those of you who have a blog, or write anything on a regular basis...what is your writing process? How do you decide what you want to write about, and once you've figured that out, how do you begin? If you come up with ideas that require internet research, how do you tackle that?

Writing Assignment #1

Since I started graduate school in 2005, I expected that at some point I would be required to teach a composition class. Parker's advent put a stop to that possibility, which I don't regret in the least, but since then I have continued to read about composition, and have even considered writing assignments that might be useful as I seek to practice and improve my own writing skills.

Here's the assignment:

Look at the books on your bookshelf. You probably have some story for each of them. This may be as simple as explaining where you bought or borrowed each book and why, whether you actually have read the book or not, the impulse that led you to purchase or borrow that particular book. Tell me what you expect to get from the book if you haven't yet read it, or what you thought about the book if you have. I'm basically looking for narratives concerning desired objects. These don't have to be books if you are not a big reader, although if you are willing to take the time to write something like this, you probably are. It can be about anything collectable, like china, or figurines, stuffed animals, games, CDs. You can write about devotional books if you like, or translations of the Bible, and what you learned from them or how they drew you closer to God.

What is the purpose of this assignment? To practice writing, of course, but also to make old things new again, to help you remember exactly why something special to you is special, or maybe even to help you let go of objects that have lost their meaning.

If anyone actually wants to do this I will be happy to read anything you want to send me. Hopefully I'll be able to give some feedback if you want to treat this like a writing exercise, although this may depend on Parker's cooperation.

Question of the Day

Does anyone have tips on how to deal with snaps that won't stay snapped on children's clothing? Is there any way that they can be refreshed?

Parker wore an adorable footballer outfit all day yesterday that looked so handsome on him and was in navy colors besides (my Dad graduated from the Naval Academy), but everytime I looked around it seemed as though his diaper was entirely hanging out. I worried from time to time that his legs would get cold. I'd rather not pack the outfit away, but how can I let him wear it as the weather gets more and more cold?

It's amazing how many football outfits Parker has considering his Daddy doesn't care for the sport! But they look great on him.

Anxiety of Influence

It's difficult not to take all this way too seriously. There are so many choices to be made just in getting started: templates, names, titles, locations; these are all things I expect to be stuck with for the forseeable future. This makes choosing all the more difficult because, while I am unlikely to make an actual mistake in this context, I am labeling myself in some particular way from the very beginning.

This, my friends, is exactly how I begin any project, with a stream of metanarrative that may (or may not) provide a gateway to something excellent. Maybe this is just practice, or maybe it's for real, after all, the intent of this project is simply to get me writing, and writing requires the false start now and again. Like I said, it's difficult not to take this all way too seriously.

So I'll begin again.