"ring by spring or get your money back"

i was talking with ali last night about christian college phenomena. have any of you heard of this one?

when i was at fresno pacific university there was a 'candlelighting' whenever some girl on campus got engaged. it was always a secret as to whom the engaged girl was--the candlelighting committee would leave flyers around campus announcing that there would be a candle lighting ceremony. the girls would gather in the basement at a specified time and sit in a circle on the floor with the lights off. the unknown girl's engagement ring would be put on a long taper candle, and then the candle would be lit and passed around the circle from from girl to girl, until it reached HER. once she got her hands on the candle THE girl would blow it out (hopefully with flair), then put the ring on her finger to signify that she, indeed, was the lucky gal. then all the girls would squeal and the lights would be turned on and everyone would attack the girl to get a better look at the rock.

does this seem like a weird secret society thing to you, too? i hadn't thought of it for years, and can't for the life of me understand why it popped into my head in my kitchen while sipping coffee with ali last night.

Curiosity killed the...

Do It Again

Perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature maynot be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. - GK Chesterton

the writing on the wall

so right now i'm in one of the carrels in the creighton library. it's the one furthest back. closest to the wall. and it's covered in writing.

some of the notable words:

--we came, we saw, we kicked ass. -ghost busters

--can't we all just light a bong?

--physics sucks

--poop

--i hate this school (in the same handwriting and pen as "light a bong")

--viva yo!

--worse comes to worse and my peoples come first

--i heart nebraska

--i'm sorry i'm not on the soccer team!

i feel like writing something. even though i'm against defacing library property. but seriously. these poor students. look where their minds are. if i were to write something, this is what i would write.


THE TABLES TURNED

UP! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun, above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless--
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:--
We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.


--William Wordsworth

They say he wrote it to Coleridge. It might be a bit long for a carrel though, huh? I love school...

reader rabbit

a week before my birthday i bought myself maureen corrigan's memoir, 'leave me alone, i'm reading.' she gives book reviews on npr and teaches at georgetown and her specialty is the refreshingly un-academic world of detective fiction and mystery novels. anyway, her book is about how reading shaped her life, how different kinds of books taught her different things, how she's always secretly thought of herself as a character in a novel. i'm about halfway through the book, and it's making two things happen: i'm remembering the serious bookworm-ishness of my youth (which i consciously tried to lose later, when nobody i knew (except ali and our hyperintelligent nerd friend, noah seigel) was reading) and i'm overwhelmed with a passionate, passionate wish to become a true bookworm again. to watch less tv in the evenings, and read more. a third thing happening is the wish to expand my reading, which has been limited, i think wrongly, by certain definitions of "good"-ness in books. anyway. readers of the blog, tell me what to read. and i would advise you, read 'leave me alone, i'm reading.'

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan

as gorgeous george said to bob dylan (at least in bob dylan's imagination), "You're really making it come alive." check it out, my friends. the beauty of public television. and of vcrs with timers. thank you, lord.

WHOLE FOODS MARKET

we are being lured, one by one, to the whole foods market in omaha. i was lost inside for an hour today. the samples were worth it. cheese, cheese, and cheese. cheryl said kyle got free beer samples last night! what!

me and adam at the joint

october 21st @ mick's in benson. 5th annual lydia house benefit show. these shows are unpredictable. two years ago a woman adjusted herself in front of the stage. last year marq manner's pal was smokin a joint under the table. this is my 5th year playing at the benefit and probably my last (with moving on the horizon). adam weaver and i are talking. we are planning. he has his drum sticks. i have my kazoo. ja's gonna play a little arm pit. oh yeah.

Dylan Journey

I am uncovering the sordid past of Bob Dylan
in the northern reaches of Minnesota
by the great lake Superior.

It is getting colder here,
you can almost feel winter just around the corner.
The leaves are changing.
Trains rumble by from the ore docks
proclaiming industrialism.

Ah, the fabled highway 61.
I started up it day-before yesterday,
but I didn't find anything Dylanistically noteworthy.

The search continues.

beowulf and the war on terror

GONNA MAKE IT RIGHT TONIGHT!

see you at sokol tonight for a great show. go congratulate her!

not arrested

we watched 2 minutes of Arrested Development and decided that we just couldn't keep watching because we haven't seen the 2nd season yet. so hopefully all ya'll caught the show, loved it, and were a stronger audience than we. i did hear about steve holt being gob's son. that's weird.

deep and wide

i had this dream last night that i went to the sufjan show and that he kept getting fatter and fatter with each song he played, like "the biggest loser" on rewind. it was crazy. and you know what else was crazy: george w. bush left me a phone message today about helping the displaced from hurricane katrina.

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

make your monday night a good one with the season premier of "arrested development" on FOX. cmon, everybody! it's couch potato time!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

happy birthday, darby! hope it was a memorable day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

A HAPPY BIRTHDAY HEY to the mix-master-calligrapher-mother CHERYL!!! happy birthday to you!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

happy birthday, ali!!!

Racing Cows

This is my three year old nephew Luke.
He informed his Mom that the family milk cow is now his racing cow.

Now there's a thought - cow racing.
I would suggest milking before racing.
Cheese anyone?

Disappointed

I'm sitting here sewing curtians for my son's new room while he naps. And, I thought I'd get up and post a disappointment I had this morning. I find very little time left in my schedule, it seems, to market my lettering business. I wish I had more. Anyhoo, I found time this morning to call a former client who had mentioned that I would probably be receiving a large lettering job for the new Holland Performing Arts Center. I hadn't heard from him and I was getting worried. I really wanted that job. He called back and told me that he found a place that has automated "what I do." And it looks, as he said, "just like the real thing." He told me it was cheaper to have a computer do the "lettering." I totally understand that people have to cut corners, etc., to fit in the budget. But, I wanted to say: "No, you can't automate what I do. That's the point." Humph. Grumble. Another job lost to the dang computer and people's lack of understanding that what people to and what computers do are not the same thing.

A woman's purse...

I'm cleaning out my purse tonight. Here are the contents:
Rotten rice milk in a sippy cup.
A dead cell phone.
Cinnamon Altoids.
Plastic hammer.
Dirty kleenex.
Coupons.
Oil change receipt.
Sermon notes scribbled on a Mark's postcard.
Billfold.
Toddler tupperware with old raisins, pizza and Veggie Booty.
"A Day in the Park: A Little Book of Opposites."
Wooden toy milk carton and lemon.
Moldy peanut butter sandwich in plastic bag.
A countertop tile.
Old grocery list.
Stale chocolate chips cookies.
2 pens.
1 chopstick.
Denyse Schmidt coin purse.
Old cheese.
hairbrush.
Spiderman sticker.
Toddler sunglasses.
10 cents.
Candied ginger.
and a plastic shark.

Yes, I, too, am amazed at the amount of old food inside my purse. What a random thing to blog about, huh?

don't miss it

tonight's the night, kiddos, the new season of "the biggest loser" kicks off with a 90-minute episode. make sure you watch with a slice of pizza in hand.

may i indulge you

i googled "mark's" and this picture came up, which isn't our very own mark's, but still seemed nice. see you there some time this weekend. god save dundee.

a glitch in the blogtrix

whenever there's even a short stop in posting, it reminds me of my 9th grade PE class. our first co-ed gym class and one of the first activities: swimming! so all the girls shuffled out of the locker room and huddled together, protectively. and all of us were waiting for someone else to be the first one to jump in. actually, i was watching from the side because i had sprained my ankle and it was the size of a canteloupe (which i just can't stand!) so wasn't allowed to participate but i was watching. and it happened just as i said. grab a bottle of evian and jump. "cmon in boys! the water is fine!"

hungry

i woke up this morning at four and couldn't go back to sleep. so, i was standing in the kitchen, staring out our window when i saw this humongous raccoon walking up to our house. i froze. remember when we had that couch on our front porch? was this the creature left the paw prints? what goes on in the night!! anyhow, more than ever i wished that i had our pellet gun handy. but, i had to sneeze and i think the coon saw me. he ran off into the black hole of junk along elvira's house. this picture makes me hungry.

Shoppin' online

Thought I'd pipe in with Caron and share some fun places to shop online.

http://www.plainmabel.com/

http://www.thecarrotbox.com/

http://www.supermaggie.com/thingstobuy/

http://www.modernseed.com/

Like we all need more places to spend money...

The Panopticon

in order to keep things fresh at work, i've started making my coworkers call me The Panopticon. It's something we talked about in my class last night. Panopticons in the early 19th century were these self-proclaimed prophets of society. all seeing and whatnot. that's how i like to see myself at the spine center. so i stopped answering to ali. now they have to call me The Panopticon. if they forget the article, they don't get an answer. it might be hard for them at first, but overall, i feel good about it. except that one of the other meanings of panopticon is a place where a jailor can see all of the inmates without being seen. hm. not so keen on that one.

links

i've been going to these places lately.

cool stuff

blue bottle
urban outfitters

le lit

i love this by Toulouse-Lautrec.

For a calligrapher, this is so stinkin' exciting...

I cannot contain my excitement. I seriously think this is a special gift from God to me to help me recover from my future post-partum distress. I'm not joking. The St. John's Bible-- a text that is continuing to be illuminated and lettered by some amazing artists and calligraphers-- will be on display at the Joslyn beginning in Jan. 2006. I've seen some pages in person during a visit to St. John's Abbey (the institution that is commissioning the work) in MN 3 years ago to attend a calligraphy conference and special exhibition of this work. It is amazing and beautiful. It will make you cry if you are the type of person who cries when you see beautiful lettering. (linked in title, see also Joslyn art museum website)

corrina

congrats to corrie! she's got a baby inside and it's 10 weeks along! more easleys! more easleys!

funny quote from edith wharton

"He had a confused sense that she must have cost a great deal to make and that a great many dull and ugly people must, in some mysterious way, been sacrificed to produce her." wouldn't it be weird if it worked like that? in the renaissance period, people believed that a person's good looks were greater or worse depending on the quality of their conception. it would be really weird if it worked like that...

being ready in season and out of season

so tonight kelly and i went walked from her sweet ass apartment to ted and wally's for ice cream. i got coconut ice cream. so tasty. kelly got black walnut. tasted like cellar. anyway, we walk out of ted and wally's, back toward her apartment, and this guy in his car at the stop light starts yelling at us.

guy in car: do you girls like penis?

ali: go away. *pause* you're terrible.

kelly says that it would have been better to deliver my old line from when i was in france and men said awful things: piss off, asshole. now who knows if the frenchy french would understand that. but it has good plosives, you know? it sounds hard. do you guys have a line ready for when people say nasty stuff to you? i find that being prepared minimizes the gross feeling that you have sometimes after that stuff happens.

Where is the 'off' switch?

"There never was a
child so lovely but his
mother was glad to see him asleep."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

labor day

do no work. rest this fine, long weekend. we are going to illinois for a wedding, funeral, and to look for futures. and to see family from afar. it reminds of me the little kid book, The Relatives Came (i think that's the title). anyhow, that book is great. more like: the relative descended. annabelle, vi, and myself are driving out early so we can see darby in iowa city and get into town at a reasonable hour. here's to little kids sleeping in the car. and to the merle hay exit.