Dear AA,

I think you're missing my um, broader point about narrative threads and real life- but I totally get you, yes. How do we invest- what are we spending our time on, and for how long. ?

Just now I spent 905 pages of time on a book I mostly loathed. Now I didn't chuck it across the room like I did with 1984 and handmaids tale (canNOT stand post-apocalyptic narratives of facist govt takeovers) but I think i'll probably throw it into the giveaway pile, even if the supercutenewsherlockholmes is playing him in the hbo miniseries. I can only hope they make it better. But the book it was callus, and fragmented narratively, and the characters- not really at all likeable? Somewhat appealing but inaccessible. For instance the main character is referred to as a "meal-sack" throughout and his meaty sausage like hands with his mouth agape. The whole thing agitates me.

Also it was 93 in the house today. i'm acclimating in that I can actually put my hair down. So there is something to not having a/c and letting your body adapt, after ive soaked my feet in cold water and drank 2 cups of iced water. The book, finished with a seriously unsatisfying end. It was gripping in a way, as life just carried on in crisis and the shifts were small but they were happening- but ultimately I wanted to care about the characters and I don't know if I did... hmm we'll see if it becomes forgettable or in a way memorable in how irritating it was- some books don't deserve it but I suppose it's working if your reacting. even if it's a bad reaction. and to think I read this book while playing hardcore on gears of war - I laughed when I set the mode on casual and played it again- how easy it all was... i didn't die over and over and over and actually say to myself, is this game going to beat you? are you giving up? or are you going to learn how to do this BIT better. now i'm super efficient at the torque bow with an xbox controller... but i digress. what's your game mode setting?

Some gamemode settings are on insane and how many of us can really go there? Sometimes, I have glimpses in myself of such courage. I'm acting it out now financially. But in the gameworld I only do that when i'm bored with the maps and the AI enemies- not aggressive enough, die too easily... yawn. Korea was insane mode in some ways too. Other ways pretty casual to normal, as life has to be at times. It's like yah, ok, what ELSE. But i had to start at casual. And then i became bold and went hardcore and now i'm used to that there's no going back to "normal".

And being away a year has given me crazy perspectives on friendships- the ones that have experienced hostile takeovers, long dormant resentments, and my need to be patient about a lot of things and that terminal list- the list itself I indite myself over- blasted projects- never ending. Today my dad came over with Hamlet- love that- to measure cabinets- so that might actually happen? Kitchen renovation. Kind of shocked. My dad did say to my mom that the living room looks like a vampire den. As I said to Pen I can only hold back my gothic and as danica suggested bohemian instincts for so long- and then I'm just seduced by the names too- medieval forest, chianti, black orchid... interestingly one of chi-cathy's favorite words is corridor. Which I love, and will try to work into the map i'm painting in the hallway (polarbear white!) and as that movie with the rabbit suggests, another beautiful word like cellar door... Autumn, today, had never heard of the word roiling. It was used in the context of church of course- it feels roiling. The battle. The tumult. The turbid waters.

Good stuff.

But life- we should try to live it on hardcore mode more often than not I think. Since safety in any sense is mostly wholly fabricated and not actual. Of course I'm biased since I spent a year meditating on what it was to be safe. Literally most everyday calling the word to mind and holding it there with God. So naturally that is my answer to everything- what are you doing? Oh, you don't feel safe. Right that's it. Little M, Little Pen, Little AA- is God holding you safe in his arms?

Besides that lately I am examining God the Father and His love for me. And know my next task is to examine my utter detachment from seeking success or a future or something? Like by gradschool maybe i got a little too esoteric with my whole "it's an end in itself" rhetoric- like maybe i shouldn't have let everyone off the hook so easily- maybe that was me trying to put something insane into a casual setting and confusing what was at stake- i mean i had the right strategy but the execution i think was off... anyway i'm pondering that.

So jejusarah is coming on Monday and I'll have gone to church, and watered my pre-school teachers yard. She's 86. And then it's off to Paramount and who knows what else. Will try not to freak out about how i can't afford gas.

Ok this laptop is raising my coretemperature to critical. I need more icedwater stat.

xo, m.

 

Currently,

It's down to 89 in the house and I'm stabbing at the 2nd frozen block of coffee willing it to melt faster. It's only a matter of time, given the temp, as I watch JeffGo/db/um become a doily salesmen on P0rtlandia. In the 2nd season didn't he play a knot salesmen? I'm not sure.

It reached 101 in shade today. I ate like 4 nectarines and frozen yogurt and one of those chocolate dips from mcds. I bought a giant bag of ice, too. And played gears of war and painted the closet and hallway all day. I thought I couldn't go on but I rallied to finish the 2nd coat on the closet. And feel I did a good days work with the looming jejusarah visit.

You raise an interesting question about narrative threads. A favorite topic of mine, as we are a month shy of our 9 year blog-iversary. (I just finished the coffee. It was amazing. My tongue is numb.) Ok so right threads- I want to hear more. Based on what you've said it occurs to me it all depends on how you read a book in the first place. I remember with horror contemplating your? and my moms, skip to the end to see how it works out before you invest. But then equally your refusal to tell me what happened in a certain book series. I tend to like to know as little as possible going on beforehand, but for certain things to know the arch of a movie or book I wont read doesn't bother me. Oh and what sort of book are we talking? Ulysses? Something by Thomas Pynchon? Or more lately and boringly by Ford Madox Ford, or Proust or I don't know- c.s. lewis? Sometimes I do rightly think i'm in Narnia. And those are the best days. The world isn't as concrete as we sometimes make it out to be. And on the worst days i'm trapped in a descriptive paragraph that wont end for the semi-colons, or worse I've stumbled into into The sound and fury and my head explodes in confusion because i'm not used to fragmented narrative yet. Remember when books actually caused your synapses to misfire do to the narrative construction?

But we're talking about real life... right right. A complicated interweb. I think each season does have distinct beginnings and ends and ok some take longer than others but I think they do and can be resolved. It builds, as frustrating as the waiting is, a sense of expectation... I suppose we have to look at what in our lives has been resolved. What's taken turns and twists. But then I'm talking to your sub-text. And that's not clear in what you expect and what you're staring at. Death is the finisher of all threads is It not? Ha knot. Anyway. Oh not that your sub-text is death. You did mention joy and patience. I think there's a lot of things we can cultivate through discipline, and routine but I think only so much can be done unless God increases our natural capacities. Otherwise it's just work right? Ugh. Who wants it. I asked God to be my work boss a few days ago and then was immediately sending complaints about the tasks and it came down to me asking Him to give me the strength to do it then, and he happily obliges most days when I remember to actually ask and not just sit mired. But then conversely so much is gained in laboring through things. It's hard in this heat.

Humm.

Based on a word from autumn when I first got back - I wrote on my mirror 1. worship 2. be responsible. And I find not much is done but berating myself for crimes against productivity if I start with 2. I see my list like violations mounting a case against me and setting me for failure at the outset. And I sit in judgment of myself and so accomplish nothing. But if I literally put on worship music, sing or hum some tunes over breakfast or just put it playing on in the room that needs to be conquered my mind is overcome and I am suddenly kinetic in a way that sheer will won't accomplish. I think it reorients the focus. In a way that literally makes all things possible. I want to remember this. It has made all the difference since I've been back. We can't hold onto this all the time, but perhaps it's like a morning offering to face the day/maybe not the day- but the maker of the day- and keep the rest for peripheral vision.

I think back to being radically healed from the church and I thought like you about this narrative thread that it would never be resolved. I was miserable in community. I showed up, not knowing what else to do, not realizing that was the thing itself- to just be there- and that God was working in a way I couldn't perceive, so that one day as someone prayed for me I felt it break over me and it was literally done. God has those sorts of things in store for all of us if we pursue him and his promises for us- I think? and for YOU. sometimes we so closely associate our identities with our wounds that we can't tell the difference. Or we think somehow the wound is us. And it isn't. The hurts, the deep places. Those can be renovated. They can be like this one spiritual one for me broken open and excised. So I suppose that's what I ultimately mean about expectation- some I suppose not ever resolved on this side of Armageddon but then, a lot will be and can be in the interim. Which to bring it back- how amazing freedom in Christ really is. And all those debates worthwhile over MM. It is a choice. It is never done without community, but it's something so worthwhile once you walk into it. Shame doesn't have to be a part of everyday life. Shouldn't be.

Well anyway list making for tomorrow and handing it over to God- a new thought pattern- here have this- this is what I need, this is what worries me, and then ok, i'm going to get to work. (obviously with lots of cold things breaks- this weather shows no signs of letting)

xoxoxo,
m