Since I've Been Sort of Kind of Playing Chess Lately...

Your result for The Chess Mess Test...

The Queen's Knight

Congrats! Only 4-5% of the population score this!

The Queen’s Knight is armed with rose-colored glasses. The mundane comes to life and nature becomes expressive of spirit. The interesting thing about this Knight is the ability to switch from fantasy to reality. There are exceptions to the rule, but this is the type that may have had imaginary friends as a youngster. Their stuffed animals also were great companions. The Queen’s Knight will see the good in almost anyone or anything – but their depth of emotion can remain hidden even from themselves. Circumstances tend to reveal sudden responses.

Not all life is rosy and this Knight is not exempt from disappointment or frustration with humanity. They may feel incompetence when dealing with their own ethical values. Things aren’t simply white black, but a grand battle of Good versus Evil. Evil must be reckoned with but Good shall eventually win. It is not that they fight evil, but that they fight for the essence of moral good. Doing something good is quite satisfactory for them and indeed increases their happiness. It is when something is not reciprocated to them that they are saddened and disappointed by others. They learn that others aren’t as self-sacrificing.

The Queen's Knight is dominated by an inner world of intense feeling and deeply rooted ethics. They seek to form their life based on their views. They are highly curious of those around them so are readily accepting of others unless their values are being threatened. They promote insight and understanding amongst others and contribute well thought ideas. They however can be a bit too idealistic.

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Hedviga Golik

I read this story today and it bothers me...

www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/05/16/croatia.body.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Basically, Hedviga Golik died 30 years ago in her apartment, and they just found her now when neighbors decided to break in.

I just found this story as well, which is creepier but a little more comprehensible. 

www.javno.com/en/croatia/clanak.php?id=147979

I just wanted to put her name out there, and encourage other people to say it and maybe light a candle for her.  30 (or 40 or 50, depending on who you talk to) years is too long to be unseen.

The Divinity Student and the Science Library: a Story of Mutual Bewilderment

So, just now I went to put a book on the book truck, and I saw another book that was already on the book truck.

This book, I thought, was called God. Huh, interesting, I thought, I like books called God. I went for a closer look.

Alas, it is not called God. It is called Cod. It is about the fish. According to the subtitle, Cod changed the world.

Well, so did God.

:) Happy finals!

From Me, With Love

Hi all,

So, my throat is sore and my head is spacey, and ironically this is making it difficult for me to focus on the book I have with me, called The Body in Pain, by Elaine Scarry. Instead, I think I will make a nice survey for you to take, if you feel so inclined. And I will answer my own questions now, so as to be fair and not pave a road with good intentions like the last time.

1. Close your eyes. Turn your head slightly to the right. Open them. What do you see? A white table, chairs with gray cushions, a sign detailing what is prohibited in Cabot Science Library.

2. Are you reading a good book now? What is it? I am almost done with Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, but can't quite bring myself to finish it. I think this is because it is the last novel I have to read for class, and beyond that it's all scholarly stuff. Not that I'm not reading the scholarly stuff now, but somehow this is psychologically relevant.

3. It's 2008. Do you believe this? Not really. I mean, I get the date right when I write it down or something, but I think sometimes I still believe it is 2004, when I graduated Bryn Mawr. I don't know why, but when I pick up a book or something that was written in 2004, I'm always like, wow, that's really new... wait... it's not.

4. Do you want to do a paper about Christian tattoos as icons? No.

5. Is it abnormally warm today where you live? Yes!

6. Have you ever been in a serious physical fight? Tell me about it. Why did it happen? What did it feel like? If you've been in many, pick one. I have not been in a serious physical fight. I have been in play-fights, and they feel like there's this energy I always carry that is suddenly focused, absorbed, and released.

7. Can you see out a window right now? If so, describe the first person you see out the window. If there's no person, or no window, tell me who is not there. I see a woman in a denim jacket with red-brown hair, walking on the rock fountain with a child who is out of view. I was going to make up a story about her, but it seems suddenly disrespectful.

8. What is right in front of you that you love? Right now I feel warmly toward this man sitting in a chair with his hands interlaced on top of his bald spot. He is wearing a tan jacket, a button down shirt of an indescribable browny-gray color, and a watch.

9. What is right in front of you that you find perplexing? I am perplexed by two small squares of velcro affixed to the circulation desk.

10. Are you tired? Yes.

11. When is the last time you made a conscious decision to lie? Why did you do so? It was a couple of weeks ago. I did it to preserve a man's good opinion of me across difficulties of language, culture, religion, sexual mores, etc. I did it to make my life easier. I don't know if it has or not.

12. What worries you right now? I am worried because I feel like I have a cold or something, and I need to be healthy when I go to Baltimore. I am worried about my school work. I am worried about the future.

13. What pleases you right now? I am pleased to be wearing shoes, not boots. I am pleased by the feel of the rim of the little garbage can against the arches of my feet. I am pleased that my shift is over in 45 minutes. I am pleased by seeing Charlotte every day, and I am pleased to be home with Rachel and Amy. In a general sense, not right at this moment, clearly.

14. What can you hear right now? Security guards discussing politics. It's interesting.

15. What (approximately) was happening in your life 5 years ago? I was 20 years old... I was still in Europe, I think, travelling with Rachel and Katie. Now I want to look up and see exactly where we were, or if we were coming back yet. I'm going to guess that it was a later part of the trip, perhaps Berlin or Paris or Dublin. Was it in Ireland that Katie told us about this blackcurrent ale or cider or something? And we got some in a pub? I remember the way the streets looked in Dublin, somehow, more than anything else. And I remember that statue of Oscar Wilde. That was in Dublin, right?

16. Has anything fundamentally changed about your emotional life since then? That's a hard question. But I have no one to blame for it but myself. I think I'm on a little more of an even keel than I was then, but fundamentally... I'm not sure that anything is fundamentally changed. Or, I think the way I understand my emotions is a bit different, but the sensations themselves are not, really. Oh... I have noticed that I am much more easily moved by things than I used to be. I find myself tearing up over lots of things, on TV or whatever, that never would have produced such a reaction before. I don't know why that is, but I think it has something to do with getting older, having a range of experiences that stretch out to contact more than they could before, and... something I can't describe, something about a broader awareness of just how vulnerable we are, of just how bad things can be. (That doesn't explain what I want to explain at all, and sounds weird. But still.)

17. Do you have any secret that you have never told anyone, at all, ever, even anonymously? I honestly didn't think so as I was writing that, but now I am thinking of things that I don't think I ever told anyone. However, I don't have anything that is a constant presence with me, that I have never told anyone, at all, ever, even anonymously.

18. Have you ever hugged a book? Yep.

19. Thrown one across the room? Yep.

20. Hit one? Yes.

21. Kissed one? I think so.

22. Destroyed one on purpose? No.

23. Yelled at one? Yes.

24. Refused to continue reading at one point due to a moral objection to certain events, but then just had to get back to it? Would I make up such a question if the answer was no? It was The Witching Hour by Anne Rice.

25. Have you done all those things to other people? I have not thrown a person across the room, nor destroyed one on purpose. And... this is interesting... I don't think I have ever explicitly refused to associate with someone because of moral objections. I think the only people I have had deep, sincere, lasting moral objections to with regard to their behavior have not been my friends. What does this mean?

26. What is the strangest thing you have ever hugged? Probably a dumbwaiter. It was a big one.

27. Kissed? A locker.

28. The very first time you were enamoured of someone, what did you do in immediate reaction? I ran weird circles around my room, sort of jumping over my bed, listening to an a capella tape of "For the Longest Time" and singing.

29. Name something unusual that had some influence in your sexual development. Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

30. And something cliched? Spin the Bottle. But I wasn't playing, really.

31. How about a minor guilty secret? Doesn't have to be about sex, just something not-huge that bugged you. Hmm... I never bought Annie on my Mind, in high school, even though I wanted to read it, because I didn't want the cashier to think I was a lesbian. And I thought that was dumb, especially since I was often buying books with gay men in them. But I still didn't buy it.

32. What about a small act of heroism? There was this man lying in the alleyway beside Merriam Theater, and everybody was sort of uncomfortably hoping he was ok and not dead and not in serious trouble, and I finally just went out myself and woke him up and made sure he was alright. That's pretty small, but it felt like kind of a big deal when everybody was older than me and technically more experienced in life.


That's all folks, time to leave work!  Take my survey for a rip-roaring good time!

Merry Christmas! (Or, I saw this movie you should see)

I forgot to say before, please see Charlie Wilson's War.  I don't want to say much about it until people have seen it, but I want you to see it so I can talk to you about it.

If that's not reason enough... Philip Seymour Hoffman is fantastic and deserves your admiration and love, and is acting in this movie.

But seriously.  See it.  Then talk to me.

Merry Christmas some more!

Merry Christmas! (Or, random thoughts about my dad)

Here I am, with my beautiful new laptop, having beautiful internet in my very own room at home, and sadly my phone has to be plugged in around the corner and so at the moment is more awkward to reach than my computer... but no one is online to talk to me!  

Well, that's not true... the automated moviefone thing is online, as is a person I only knew on the internet except for meeting once randomly in person, but with whom I have not spoken in any context for some time.  And some people have away messages up.

But that's ok, because I have a delightful public-private inner-thoughts-to-outer-world forum to keep me company until my phone gets more charg-y.  Or until I just get sleepy, and forget all the things I wanted to say, which seems to be happening right now.

It's been an interesting time so far.  I spent some time with my dad Saturday and Sunday, and that was good.  It's amazing how I can feel so connected to him in some ways, like when we talk about the big stuff of life and the spirit, which sounds, as such things often do, ridiculous to write down, except that I really mean it... and I feel like we're really sharing something important, and special, and we are... and then I try to tell him what I think about a movie, or what I'm doing next year, and it seems like we're communicating but suddenly he says something that has all the ingredients of what I've been saying, but isn't actually my point at all... and then I look at the picture we took together using Photo Booth, and our smiles do the same thing to our faces, our noses are the same, the stretch of our mouths... or I see him almost-sleeping on the couch and he moves his thumbs against each other restlessly like I know I do, or his feet, absurdly high arch tucked and rubbed against the top of the other foot, and that is just like me.  And somehow all these things, connections, disconnections, awkwardness, alikeness-- come from the same person, in not even 48 hours.  And he tells me he wants to know more about what I like and I am quiet, not knowing what to say.  (We are talking about music, should I give a list?)  And sometimes I think he creates an idea of me quite fully out of pieces of true things, and sometimes I think he knows me in ways I cannot know myself.  

This is ironic, since part of our discussion, a real heart of it, was how you cannot see yourself, how if you look for the self you cannot find it, that self-hood itself (ha) and everything around it is created... but if there is no self, created by whom?  This is one of those statements that should maybe come with warnings, like the Cloud of Unknowing: Don't read me or think about me unless you're way gung-ho about the whole spiritual path deal.  Or maybe I'm just posturing.  (Who is?  Ha.)

He can irritate me intensely, and I am terribly afraid of displeasing him in some small way.  He bought me beautiful shirts-- in size extra-large.  I take a stupid pleasure in being more educated than he is, in thinking silently that I understand more while he speaks.  Especially about eastern religions.

I can see now how crippled he has been, because he is not so big and full of power as he used to be.  When he hugs me, he is still the strongest person in the world, the whole world still goes away.  I think he is trying to protect me from his family, or protect himself through me.  I think he has systematically removed me from their reach... he may be fully conscious of this, or totally unconscious, or I may be incredibly wrong.

I love him.  I can't decide if that statement encompasses all of this I have said before, or not.

So, there's actually a lot more I have to say, about things other than my dad, like... my mom!  ;)  Well, and how Christmas Eve went and how it was singing at Mass and how my extended family is responding to my telling them about Charlotte with a wonderful outpouring of love and support so far... and how I got some cool presents at Jeff's family's party, and... well, but this will all have to wait.

In the meantime, the merriest of Christmases to you all!  I love you!  (Or I don't know you, but you can have some love too, if you want!)

Notes to (or on) the World

It's snowing. It's been a real winter so far. Several real snowstorms and lots of trudging through ice and snowbanks and having big snow crystals in my hair and finding my feet sliding out from under me. I think I'm happy about it. Or, it's a pain, and it's cold, and it's difficult to get around, but somehow I feel some kind of strange joy when I am out in it nonetheless. I did this morning, anyway.

And last night, I was cutting home through the woods and I suddenly noticed how beautiful it was, and how quiet. I looked over and I saw this small tree, thin and curvy and bent, standing by itself. I felt like this was Christmas, or Advent, this was something I'd been waiting for. So I stood there looking for awhile, debating whether I wanted to get my feet wet to go over to it, and then I got off the path and trudged through the snow, and when I made it to the tree I fit perfectly against the curve of it, with my arm around the side and my cheek against the cold, wet bark.

I hope this will do as a resumption of posting. If I have any faithful readers left. ;)

A more petty note is that people should not write in library books. Ever. Especially not if it's a complicated novel like Midnight's Children which I am trying to read and pay attention to, but somebody has underlined half of every page and written crap like "style" and "shows failure of omniscient narrator" all over the margins. Just read! Don't write! Or, if you must, get your own book or write notes on a notebook or something.

Hello

This is just a note to let you all know that there are no disasters on my end. :) I will write something longer soon, really.