Be Not Idle

When people are surprised by my age, I like to say, “It’s because I’m immature for my age.”  They laugh, but I’m telling some truth. It’s hard to tell exactly where good genes and attitude intersect. Continue Reading »

I’m not sure if Laura’s theme this week is shopping in general or clothes-shopping in particular, so here are two:

Wheels sideways and stuck,
the cart squeals like a small child
forced to groc’ry shop.

Pulling, twisting and
squashing femininity -
searching for new bras.

UPDATE: The theme seems to be a trip to the MALL. So thus:

Chatting teens and brisk
seniors – have you turn’d this mall
into a racetrack?

The nature of seeking is based on the belief that there is something worth seeking. Seeking only for the sake of seeking is a farce because the seeker must always be a believer—a believer that something can be sought. Choosing not to find anything is simply cognitive dissonance. – Carl Olson

Olson is re-running a column about people who would rather seek God than find Him. The column appeared in The National Catholic Register in  Spring 2004, but it’s just as pertinent today.

The perpetual seeker reminds me of a very old joke:

A woman comes across her neighbor searching in the yard for a lost screw.

“Where did you drop it?” she asks.

“In the garage,” he says.

“Then why are you looking here for it?”

“The light is better out here.”

I no longer read the Daily Kos, but an aquaintance sent me a copy of a column. The author, using the pen-name “Something the dog said”, wrote the  following:

Yes, the 9/11 attacks were horrific, but they were more about optics than actual harm. The economy was already taking a hit before the Twin Towers fell. The reaction of the nation to seeing two major buildings in New York fall on T.V. has boosted the attack out of proportion. While the loss of even a single life is to be condemned and the devastation these deaths caused the families of those killed (sic), more than this number of teens are killed every year in car crashes. These are also tragic losses but we do not make the kind of high profile issue of it that the 9/11 attacks are.

Why would the writer equate purposely killing 3000 people in ONE BLOW with a yearly number of accidental deaths? Perhaps s/he wasn’t personally and  devastatingly affected by it, so the deaths were equivalent in their effect on him.

Or perhaps s/he felt that the net sum of the event was zero.  As someone living outside a “target rich” environment, I appreciate that the odds of death by terrorist act is lower than death by drunk driver.  This lack of immediacy is why, as children, we often struggled to understand dangerous situations. Children not only lack experience, but they live in a fantasy-rich world.  Often they have a childish fantasy of invincibility, as if they can run across a highway faster than the car bearing down on them.

But adults are expected to wrap their minds around situations outside their experience. To be unable to anticipate danger is a liability. To live in a fantasy is a psychological illness.

A few months after 9/11, I spoke to an acquaintance who said 3000 didn’t seem like a lot of people. I pointed out that his town, a “bedroom community” of commuters who drive to more urban areas only for work, had roughly 4000 residents. It would be like a single event wiping out his 3/4 of his friends and neighbors.

His response was to joke that things were getting crowded in his neighborhood. I found him unsettling. Please understand: I know gallows humor and I have employed it myself. But this wasn’t gallows humor. He wasn’t considering his own mortality. In his mind, he would somehow be spared if disaster struck.  More creepy was the sense I got that he couldn’t get his mind around the immensity of 3000 deaths because, to him, those other people weren’t real.

That, I fear, is what the “dog was saying”.

San Francisco legislators are proposing a limit on toys in Happy Meals and the like.  (Hat tip to Sister Toldjah.)

Ludicrous.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been changing my habits. However, I’ve gone to McDonald’s at least once a week this past month, since I’ve been out and about a lot.

I eat Happy Meals because they’re cheap and small. The hamburgers are just the right amount of meat and pickles. (I get rid of the bread). Instead of fries, I order the apple option, skipping the sugar-laden “dipping” carmel.  Since shunning pop, I get juice or coffee.

What about the toys? So far, I’ve kept a weird Last Airbender dragon that suits my office decor (Late Grotesque and Arabesque). The others went to a  charity bin. Continue Reading »

Fr. Barron travels with the Word on Fire video crew to report on Catholic culture and comment on philosophy as found in pop culture. But during a trip to Ireland, he found the prejudiced slant surprisingly.

If he’d read The Heelers Diaries, he wouldn’t have been.

Before Christmas, a “netfriend” asked me what motivates me to simplify my life and get rid of a lot of “good” stuff, including gifts from relatives. I ended up posting a list. To my surprise, members of the “Stepping Out of Squalor” website have continued to add to it.

Below are my original reasons: Continue Reading »

Laura at Catholic Teacher Musings is hosting her usual Bad Haiku Friday.

Doctor Who, Bud and
Lou, Gilligan’s Island, too -
scenes from my childhood.

Now the birdfeeder
provides more entertainment
and squirr’ls, better plots.

Can’t stand TV shows
that bore, depress, or annoy;
ergo, no TV.

I’m hoping the link works
to Catholic Teacher Musings.
(Fingers cross’d, Laura!)

Since just yesterday I had a run-in with an AT&T rep who was determined to sell me a TV package, I wrote with gusto!

I’m surprised sometimes by the ways people will label the “pro-Life” people as wacky Bible-thumping Christians. I’ve met pro-Life agnostics and atheists, including one who put it very bluntly, “Abortion is a human rights violation.”

Still, I was surprised to see find a similar message in a manga (Japanese comic) that deals primarily with supernatural. xxxHolic revolves around a mysterious shop that is visible to those needing magical services. The philosophy tends to discussions of balance, unhealthy human desires, and retribution. But the art is gorgeous, from the Art Deco-style character designs to the sumptuous backdrops. Continue Reading »

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. – 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NIV)

Part of the fun of summer is playing like a child in the warm weather, especially swimming and hiking. Like most American women, I want to look better in a bathing suit or shorts. To that end, I decided to try the cabbage soup diet that my parents liked. It worked pretty well, so I followed it with a low-carb, high-protein diet for several weeks. The result?

Gout.

After much thought (and pain), I have re-evaluated my approach. I will not be counting calories, carbohydrates, or grams of fiber. And forget eating foods I don’t like.

Instead, I’ve come up with a list of small steps: Continue Reading »