sporadic obsession

My church ordained an army chaplain this past Sunday. Our congregation president -- a distinguished lawyer in his early 60s -- tends to choke up with emotion during such rituals, which in turn gets me going. And sure enough, at these words...

As a military chaplain, you will be called to ensure and uphold the free exercise of religion as stated in the first amendment, and to nurture the living, care for the wounded, and honor the dead.

---

The previous Sunday, a friend saw me pause midway down the stairs to the lower parking lot.

"What on earth are you doing?" she asked.

"Look," I said, pointing to the flowers hiding behind the steps.

---

One of the first sopranos in the chamber choir works as a physical therapist. During coffee hour, she tutored the senior minister on using crutches.

Also during coffee hour, a toddler wearing a large pink flower on her head was playing "Do you see me?" with her mom, in the sanctuary. The girl is barely as tall as the pews, so whenever I looked up from my crocheting, what I mostly saw was the pink flower zipping along the top edge of the pews.

That alone would have been delightful, but then the girl decided to clamber up the stairs to the social hall, happily and speedily. It was clear that this was a first when the mother shrieked to her husband, "Look!" And the husband looked up from the programs he'd been sorting, and then exclaimed, "Holy crap!" :-)



This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/3530.html.

I'm shallow, and I admit it: while it's true that a good crosscourt backhand or approach volley can make me wriggle my shoulders with appreciation, I'm also wholly capable of cheering for a player (or at least cutting them some slack) simply because they are kind to puppies. The most recent photos on my timeline:

David Ferrer: http://yfrog.com/esgrkqmj
Petra Kvitova: http://yfrog.com/es9z3fj

(Past sightings, which I'll blog about some other time, include Djokovic, Murray, Mauresmo, Ferrero, V. Williams, and Lendl)

Drinking a cup of Dark Magic decaf before heading to chamber choir warmup, and rereading Ross Gay's Overheard, which includes the lines...

. . . I was slow to look at him
because I've learned to close my ears
against the voices of passersby, which is easier than closing
them to my own mind,
and although he said it I did not hear it
until he said it a second or third time
but he did, he said It's a beautiful day and something
in the way he pointed to the sun unfolding
between two oaks overhanging a basketball court
on 10th Street made me, too
catch hold of that light . . .

This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/2538.html.

Via samhenderson.livejournal.com: Jim C. Hines attempts the poses of women on fantasy novel covers. *obligatory beverage v. monitor warning here*

I came across this yesterday while trying to figure out where I'd stashed an accordion file. It's the first acceptance letter I received from a professional literary journal:




Forthcoming:

Saturday, March 24, 2012, at 11 a.m.: "Science, Sonnets, and Speculation," a reading in the West Reading Room of the Nashville Public Library, with Mary Alexandra Agner and Joanne Merriam.

The publication of my first chapbook, by Upper Rubber Boot Books! It's scheduled to be released this spring. Stay tuned for more details ...

Poems in Dwarf Stars 2011
and The Moment of Change: An Anthology of Feminist Speculative Poetry

(.............Am I geeked about showing up in the same Table of Contents as Ursula K. Leguin, Jo Walton, and other luminaries? You bet!)

A photo in Issue 17 of Prime. (There are photos by and of me in Issue 13, by the way.)

On to the next stack... ;-)

This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/1811.html.

[Via salinea]

Over the past month, I've glimpsed tense exchanges in threads hither and thither in reaction to comments perceived as unsolicited advice. (I'm trying to phrase that observation carefully, because at times, there seemed to be different paradigms for both "unsolicited" and "advice" among the parties involved.) So this caught my eye yesterday:

http://www.fluentself.com/blog/stuff/advice-giving-mode-vs-helper-mouse-mode

(For what it's worth, I'm still pondering it. Because while Havi's post spells out for emotional semi-literates like me why advice raises people's hackles, I need to process for myself my resistance to the helper mouse alternatives. [I know some of it is because of past encounters with emotional vampires and my ongoing cagematch with overcommitment, such that directly asking "How can I help you?" seems to me tantamount to unbuttoning my collar and saying, "Here, guzzle away." I also have a fair amount of baggage from people who asked "How can I help?" and then didn't help [because the things I asked for were apparently too inconvenient or unglamorous or whatever] -- which is to say, I don't want to do that to other people in turn, so I no longer make blanket offers of assistance. [Doesn't mean I think myself too good for scut work; it just means I've become careful about what I promise, because it's a really awful feeling when one can't deliver.]

...In short, I'll need to poke past the examples to figure out what could work for me, when someone has my ear and is waiting for an engaged, non-condescending response. [Honestly, there are times when I wish all y'all lived just a neighborhood or two away. I tend to do better when I can resort to hugs and ice cream sandwiches instead of talking.])

* * *

Still cursing my clogged lungs, but I did do a fair amount of cooking at the start of this week. For Christmas dinner, I prepared oyster-beansprout pancakes, sea scallops with cauliflower two ways, and cider mulled with rum. For Boxing Day brunch, I made shakshouka, and for dinner, couscous. The upside to not being well enough to sing in lessons & carols on Christmas Eve was being free to join friends for homemade pizza.

* * *

After reading the recent NYT piece on Ezra Jack Keats, I borrowed a bunch of his books from the library. There is so much to see in Dreams -- I especially like the spreads that show the different goings-on in Robert's apartment building, through its windows, and how Keats's choice to vary from spread to spread how many windows are shown.

Suzy Menkes, about A Master of Embroidery Remembered:

Mr. Lesage’s grandchildren also spoke, describing vacations in Corsica, where their nocturnal grandfather would play with their computer games half the night and then sweep them off on a boat in the morning.

. . .

Mr. Lesage deeply appreciated the poetic essence of his work, saying "embroidery was the love of writing your dreams with a needle, with a pearl with anything that could enchant and bring tenderly to life a décor, an ambiance, a souvenir."

Those words were at the heart of Mr. Lesage's work. But the secret of his creative longevity was to embrace the new, as well as establishing profound relationships with designers, working in their individual cultures.

Laurel Graeber, Homage to a Picture-Book Rebel (on Ezra Jack Keats).

[cross-posted from TalkAboutTennis]

Wasn't at tonight's [Fedal] match, but made it to the O2 for the Sunday night session and the Monday day session. Will post snapshots later (as well as links to more about Bercy -- what with work, flu, and my non-tennis-junkie SO joining me, time's been wicked scarce ), but for starters:

* On Sunday, FyMat put on a far better show than at Bercy. Way easier to believe they're a Top 8 team watching them Sunday night. (They were TERRIBLE against Mahut/Benneteau, so much that a friend asked me if they were tanking.)

* Super shotmaking by Fish across two sets (and Rafa's serve was somewhere in Mallorca all night). Up in the nosebleed section, mostly Spanish Rafa fans but some Fish supporters even before he started playing well. Horror show of a tiebreak, though, and the scrum to get on a bus (the first of three) to get back to my hotel (which I eventually did, 2.5 hours and 3 buses later...) was appalling (the ticked-off Italian ladies jeering the queue-jumpers were entertainingly vulgar, though).

*Nice variety of souvenirs (both tournament-specific and from various vendors), but I was so hacked off by the transportation debacle that I refused to spend any cash beyond the program book I'd already bought. Tip: program book contains vouchers for the daily updates, so it's worth one's while to buy it early on if it's on the list. Lacoste was handing out men's perfume samples (blue, white, and green).

* The O2 includes two Starbucks and many bars. Las Iguanas (where I met up with some online pals both days) makes a cocktail called the Chilean Chemist with a strange mix of ingredients that is surprisingly tasty.

* Monday dubs -- fair number of schoolkids in uniform; just a smattering of people in section 414. Indian players' box hilariously enthusiastic about encouraging their guys via applause (but also good about not openly cheering Lindstedt-Tecau errors). I need to review my ATP rules, b/c I don't know why the chair ump could be Mo (Swedish) w/ Lindstedt playing. First match where I've ever heard someone in the crowd repeatedly calling out "C'mon, Horia!"

* Murray-Ferrer -- yeah, that medical treatment at the end of the first set did not need to be on the big screen. Ouch. Didn't look overly physically hampered in the second set, but mentally seemed way too loose -- the tweener was the least of it. Had the feel of a warmup rather than a year-end match. And while Andy got a warm-enough greeting from the house, I have to say I was missing the French and their drums and Allezes -- the random "C'mon Andy"s (and "Vamos David"s) just seemed so sparse in comparison.

* I really do love live tennis. Even with Rafa and Andy not at their best, hearing and seeing the sheer variety and power of their shots (and same for Mardy and David) first-hand, and the beauty of the winners -- yeah.

* Meh on the pre-show stuff. Bercy way better and less pompous/tedious. On the other hand, WTF wins on the ballkid and linespeople kits -- much better designed. (Not sure why Lacoste handles WTF and Hackett handled Paris.) As a stadium, O2 cheap seats in better shape and more legroom but floor is gross. (My feet and purse should NOT be sticking to it at the start of the Monday day session!)

* Nissan had two kiosks -- one by Las Iguanas (not all displays working, but the design-your-own car game was fun) and one in the FanZone that takes 360-degree-cam photos of people posing with a racquet or ball. My take = crap form, but the hair got some fun comments from the staff. (And not that you can tell from the site, but I opted out of the "competition" for best photo -- I don't live on the right side of the pond, and I'm highly unlikely to return to the O2 again when I do come back in 2-10 years.)

* DJ was so-so. More variety than the Bercy sound guys, but dude, Eagle-Eye Cherry's "Stay Tonight" is a REALLY inappropriate song to play when the video of the ballkids is on the big screens.