"Do you ever read any of the books you burn?"
"That's against the law!"
"Oh. Of course."
[Fahrenheit 451]

-Ray Bradbury, science-fiction writer (1920- )

I thought this was an appropriate quote with which to begin the summer (though don't ask me why). I have not read leasurly since last summer... I am so tired, that I have a dull throb at the back of my head from stress and lack of sleep. I don't know how my finals went... I plan to bug my tutors and my connections in the offices until I know if I am coming back next year... But I am not going to worry about that now, mostly through lack of energy... This week-end will be relaxing and exhausting...

So I somehow didn't manage to get that third cup of tea. And now it's 7:40 and getting dark, and it's stopped raining too. I haven't done any homework for tomorrow (bad) and have not gotten any furtherwith finals studies (also bad). But I don't want to study, I want to curl up in my arm chair (after I dump out all the clothes that are currently living there) and read or play with my guitar (at this rate the Sprit will be playing it before I do...for now she is content to play with the four bottom strings, but it is only a matter of time) or drink tea. I got my tea pot back (and it's clean too).

*sigh*

Does anyone have any motivation they could lend me for a week or so? I'd give it back, honest I would. For some odd reason, the fear of failing is simply not doing it for me...

Oh well, off we go. At least I can get tomorrow's homework done decently...

It's just past 10 o'clock in the morning and I am ready for my third cup of tea. The water I put on to boil in my room down the hall from my haunt is probably ready, and I have perhaps a dozen teas to choose from. I wonder if I am addicted? I've managed to loose my favorite mug and my teapot it up in the Commons, left there from the mad teaparty of a few days ago. I would really like to make a strong pot of tea, transfer it to a thermos and wander off into the fog shrouded hills with a warm coat and several books and not come back until I'm soaked or dark, or both. However, my finals harried mind won't let me enjoy this relaxation beyond the speculation of it, so instead I will wander back down the hall and continue to worry about the equivalency laws of gases and play with my guitar, and yes, drink tea.

Thoughts on the approach of finals week...


Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!

-Lewis Carroll, mathematician and writer (1832-1898)

We're less than a week away from year end finals, and I am starting to feel it. All evening I have been fighting (mostly in vain) against the hard hot feeling of desperation and frustration seated in my chest. I don't want to have study for finals... Finals mean change and people leaving and not coming back. They mean that things will be different and strange. Besides all that, they're hard!!!
So I sat down to correct student work, so I could then do tomorrow's homework, and ignore review guides for another two evenings (tomorrow evening being taken up with seminar and homework of it's own...Thursday is plenty soon to start studying, right??) I discovered instead the Senior year book, full of pictures and quotes (lots and lots of quotes) and read it cover to cover. It almost dispelled the knot in my breast...and then I looked at the papers that litter the desk of the Lady of the Haunt and was quickly reminded of the doom waiting for us next week...
And I had such grand plans for this eveing. I was going to write for a while (it seems that I've remembered how to think, just in time perhaps in more than one respect...) and then take care of assignments and student work that has been waiting around for a week (or two...) and tackle or at least look over and make some notes on the reviews that I had... But as time moved on, my sense of purpose waned and the despondancy waxed (and not even in proportion... And to think just this morning I was thinking of how lovely it was to watch the change in shading in the trees as I walked along the edge of the forest... bother it all)
*sigh*
I am going to be losing my haunt in a week's time... very very sad thought. I need to do something to fix this, and soon...

Isn't it a strange sensation when you suddenly realize that you havn't thought about anything in a really, really long time? Rather frightening, actually...

The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man. -Madame de Stael, writer (1766-1817)

A fascinating quote by an author I've never heard of. I am in the middle of a Google search about her. Something I found...she seems very interesting. I'd like to see what she said herself... Hmmm, I wonder if the library has any of her books.

I finally made it down to the Getty museum. I've been wanting to go since I got here nearly two years ago. I will definitely be going back during the summer, there is still so much to see. Amoung many other beautiful works, we saw two Monet paintings Haystacks on a Winter Morning, and the Rouen Cathedral. (Perhaps it is a sign of immaturity in taste, but the Impressionists are my close to being my favorite painters.) It was so wonderful to be able to wander around these huge buildings, absorbing beauty in so many forms, never once feeling the ache I usually associate with the beautiful. Perhaps it was the company, or the novelty of being far away from school mingling with complete strangers...

The day is lovely, clear sky and warm. I am exhausted and I don't really know why... seeing as I have to work tonight, I am going to go to sleep for a bit...

Vive il Papa!!!!!


May God bless and guide our new Holy Father, Benedict XVI.

A week ago today, I was skipping class to take care of put-off-business. This week I have no such excuse...so now I have to go and read it... After I take my helicopter another 500 ft. Why are mindless games so addictive???

Life is strange and for some reason continues to change. Why can't thing settle for just a bit, say long enough for me to get used to them?

I spent this past week-end visiting with my parents and three youngest siblings. It was wonderful to see them, how much they have grown. (My baby sister, age 6 yrs, told me as we walked down to my dorm room from where they were staying that she had been told that I "like to read and listen to classical music." I don't even know if she remembers me on her own...) Mixed in with it all though was the feeling of constraint that I had come to associate with "being at home after the time I should be gone" that I had felt before leaving for school. I almost felt as if I had never really left at all...very distressing. Add to this the strange and almost unknown sensation of homesickness (something entirely unknown to me until very recently) and it made for a very interesting time of it...

Summer is four weeks away and every week has something going on... I look out at the time before me and I can see it slipping by. I am reminded of standing at the beach, my feet in the sand at the water's edge and each wave taking a little more from under me. The sensation of gradually sinking and feeling foundationless is eerily similar. I want things to stay the same for just a little while, so I can get used to them, can get my mind around them and see what is happening and where it all is going.

*sigh*

At the same time, I would not change where I am for the world...

Somehow I've gotten myself to the point of having to chose between semiar and all of the other things that I have to take care of (correcting month old student work, homework...

~ ~ ~
the door to my computer haunt opens and my evening of computer time vanishes... I am happy for the cause of its termination, but I am left with so much to do and no where to take care of it....

Reason # 736 for owning ones own computer: it is available when you want it... (is it just me or does this sound like the last reason?)

What is life?
At the moment it is realizing that even seemingly small choices have consequences and repercussions. And being the non-committal, procrastinator that I am, I really don't what to have to face these outcomes. I feel like I am looking at myself through a magnifying glass, both examining and waiting to get burned.
I have promised myself over and over again in the past (and not so distant past) that I would not be the cause of someone else's pain again. I've done with that, no more, not again. And yet, looking ahead at the choices I have to make in the near future, I can not see anyway to avoid giving someone disappointment and pain. In my own mind, I know what I am going to do when the situations arise, but I am almost sick at the thought of facing them. I am weak and scared, and all I want to do is run and hide.

Sunlight is fading from the hills
and I am trying to remember how to be happy.
Lines of shadow darken, color fades
I sift through memories
as so many recipes in an old kitchen drawer
looking for the one that will tell me
the ingredients I lack.
Cool air and quiet slowly saturate my haunt
and I grasp for words I will never utter aloud.

A thought to fill the time until I find some to spare on posting...

Readers may be divided into four classes: 1. Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied. 2. Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time. 3. Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read. 4. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, critic (1772-1834)

I am going to be yelled in a moment or two, but these are the first moments put together I've had since I've gotten here. Ten minutes ago the livingroom floor was not visible beneath the litter of mattereses and sleeping bags... There is a bit of fog outside, making the breeze just a bit on the chill side. I am not really sure how many of us have decended upon the welcoming home of Dz's parents.
"we're going"

It is raining and I have Bible verses running through my head.
Perhaps it it because we are coming up on the Triduum, but I keep thinking of the verse "...and he went out and wept bitterly into the night..." I've always thought that it should be raining during Peter's repentance, though it says nothing about it raining at that time in the gospels. Perhaps it's all of the comparisons of rain to weeping...
I had an interesting discussion with Toque last night about humanity, sin, and humility. He was making the case that at some point we have to acknowledge that we on our own are not able to do anything but fall. It is simply who and what we are. This is where humility comes in, we have to ask God for the grace not to fall, recognizing our own inability to accomplish anything good. Humility becomes necessary because we are commanded to be "perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect." My thoughts ran more along the lines of the difference between men and women's responses to this. For all the fact that we all fell in Adam, that we are all men sharing the same fallen human nature, the "daughters of Eve" have inherited something peculiar to themselves in the way they view sin, particularly their own. Mother Eve was, to a certain extent, the incentive for Adam to fall, her company, beauty, just she in herself. Women have in a way inherited a sense of guilt on account of this. I think this is the reason women will often see the sins of others as being their own, why they will withdraw in certain situations. They see it as a danger zone of pain, either for others or themselves. I know there was an element of this playing in myself the other night...

They were an interesting group there, collected at the base of the amphitheater. It may well have been the setting for a play of its own, three ladies and two gents discoursing amoung themselves on the random and profound. Walking down the steps, my familiar blew up on an errant breeze and wrapped itself around my heart closer than the lover's arms around my waist. Unconsciously I shivered, while laughing to myself at the wonder of meeting this collection of friends in the empty park.
surprised "Come down and join us."
cheerful " We're giving speeches on random words. Come on it's your turn..."
laughing "It will be fun. Go on, up on the stage."
Voices chiming in, meaning to be welcoming and open, isolated and closed me off. I did not belong in this merry group. Usually I would tell myself that I was being silly and childish, to pay no attention to the familiar twining itself about my heart like a cat about one's legs. This night, though - the moon a low crescent, the stars bright though the light haze in the valley, the trees all around tall and slim, low and round, the laughter, the light- removed all within me with which I ordinarily dismiss my familiar. I gave in. No, I was not of this folk...
As he climbed up to the top of the covering, up amoung the tree branches, I wandered to the top of the amphitheater, stepping on the backs and seats of the long brown rows of bleachers. There now, I can observe and enjoy, listening to their conversations and laughing with my familiar.
called "What will you give for water?"
called in reply "Nothing, for I need it not."
to themselves "Ah the self-sufficient sort...."
I knew then I would not be allowed to remain backstage, in the wings, apart, alone. And sure enough, W came walking up the center aisle.
murmured "Please come down."
whispered "I don't belong here."
laughing softly "I don't either... please come down...for me..."
His voice trailed off. I wouldn't look at him, but I knew his face wore a troubled look, partly sad partly pleading. With a sigh I followed him down the aisle, back toward the collection of people at the foot of the stage.
calling up to the figure perched above "Your turn."
called down "What am I to talk about?"
obvious reply "Talk about her"
I had to laugh. About me?
quipped "Here I'll help- let me get out of sight."
I saw a chance to escape again, climbing on the stage looking up at him as I passed under his hanging feet, feeling far away from him now. I lingered in the shadows of what ought to have been the backstage, listening to him holding forth on peanuts and his roommate.
to me "Your turn."
curious "Mine? I don't think so."
reply "Yes. The word is 'wall'."
leaning back "Then I am the wall and nothing you say can penetrate..."

And so wore away our time in the theater, this scene of the pageant wherein we play in played out and past.

As we walked back through the quiet park, away from the abandoned amphitheater, he asked me what was wrong. He caught the tears I had not let form or fall as they tugged my voice, catching my throat. I was at a loss. How does one describe one's familiar? A daemon? To tell him that it wends its way into my heart in a surer fashion than he, possessing without effort what he desires for his own? That I weary of the struggle with it... No, better to laugh and say nothing is wrong, that I am being silly. But he knows me too well and will not let me be drawn further away from him. I am grateful for his struggle to understand, it gives me strength for the fight.

ACK taxes!!!!!!!!!! Evil evil taxes! In the past I have not minded having to file taxes so very much. It was simple enough, and the refund (when I didn't think about the fact that the refund was actually money that ought not to have been taken from me in the first place) was rather nice to get in the mail. It made you feel like you suddenly had extra money to play with. This year however, it is simply confusing. Too many forms, schedules, instructions...too much stuff to process. Perhaps I ought to go and ask someone for help...

Excerpt from letter written 15 March. Edited for content.

"How possible to love someone so much you ask, love… perhaps it is a way of seeing them… seeing more of what is to be loved in them, more of God in them. As you wondered this, I immediately thought “yes but you love your child even more than this” to a similar effect, how is it possible to love more than this? The answer must be God, and the desire to love Him that is somehow in our nature. I mentioned this in my last letter…as a lover you must first seek Him, completely desiring Him as your love, your only love, satisfied only and alone with and by His love. All other loves will satisfy only when they come through and are offered to Him. Because we are created for Him, it is only His love that will satisfy, and our souls somehow know this. I’ve sought this grace from Him for years now, seeking to find rest and stillness in Him, often failing and returning with tears and new realizations of what love is. "

Random:

~I spent perhaps half an hour this morning tying a friend of mine into a corset. Yes, an corset- one of those things that make the waist of the woman wearing it look impossibly small by a trick of the eye. I came to two conclusions. First, ladies' maids were in fact necessary, because it is impossible to get one of those things on without assistance. (I've always wondered about that...) Second, they don't really make your waist that much smaller, they shift the attention to the bust and hips and give a very definite line from one to the other. Hence the famous "hour-glass figure." They look extreemly uncomfortable to wear, and from what I've heard are also bad for you healthwise (something about damage to intenal organs...). So why is it that I as still curious to see what I would look like in one? *sigh* vanity of vanities...

~Reason #59 to get a computer of one's own: Papers are much easier to write on one's own time and not around the schedule of half a dozen other people.

The due date for the last paper of this year is...now let's see...five days away. I have only the vaguest of ideas of what I am going to do with it. I keep making time for it and something happens, and my efforts are thwarted. I took off from rehearsal this week-end and the Lady Gatekeeper needed the computer for application essays at the same time. So I think, "Ok, write an outline and collect ideas." This being done, and the computer still not available, I wander down to rehearsal, only to leave an hour and a half later to go to my philosophy prof.'s for supper. I am very glad I went, but it did not get anything done on the paper. Tonight, little things eat nearly 2/3's of the time I'd set aside for it...
*sigh* Perhaps I do worry too much about these things. I know I can write enough in four hours. But I do need those four hours, and it would be rather useful to have them all together rather than spread out over five days.
I think I'll wander off tomorrow night. Hmmm what am I doing tomorrow night, oh that's right...maybe I won't be...

On a brighter note, the seniors turned in their theses last night as the cover charge the one, if not the best party of the year here on campus. It began at 11 and lasted 'til 2 from what I've heard. Strange enough, there were few senior to be seen about today...though those who were to be found had something of a glow to them and a certain lightness to their step. It was very good to see. Defenses start in three weeks...the year is winding down. Soon the freshmen will be reading the Republic and then it will really be near the end. Graduation will come and nearly everyone will go. And time will move on...