Oh really?

On my iGoogle homepage, one of the apps I have installed is a "Quote of the Day" feature... today's quote is from the western novelist Louis L'amour:

Nobody got anywhere in the world by simply being content.

I beg to differ, at least in one aspect. I believe that being content is actually the ONLY way to get anywhere. Perhaps not content to remain in one spot or one mindset... but content in knowing that God's up to something cool and exciting, and that He's got a plan for me to be a part of it, whatever it is, and that I don't really need to be concerned about the details. I just need to be content in the circumstances He's put me in TODAY, and to be prepared for any changes He might have in mind for me TOMORROW.

I think that the Apostle Paul might even agree with me...

Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. Philippians 4:11-13

Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it. So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content. But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. 1 Timothy 6:6-10

I'd be thrilled to have money -- don't get me wrong. But I can't allow myself to be driven by the love of it. There actually are lots more important things than money. I suppose I can be thankful I wasn't given the immense responsibility; I probably wouldn't be very trustworthy with scads of money. It's certainly easier to stay out of trouble if I can't afford troublesome behavior in the first place.

A six-month vacation in Fiji would be fun, though rather impractical and selfish of me. If I got a big bukkit of money, I'd probably sink a sizeable amount into the restoration of this terrific house I live in. No, I don't imagine there would be much return on investment, but if I had money to burn, who cares? And then I'd pay for Isaac to go to college (at OU, preferably... astrophysics or petroleum engineering or something like that).

And then I'd buy a beach house in Virginia or the Carolinas and I'd paint watercolors forever and forever.

But contentment? I haz it. Even right now, when things aren't exactly ideal. Because I know things won't always be thus. So no, Mr. L'amour, I beg to differ. Everybody suffers at some point if they're ever going to be a worthwhile person... contentment is much more constructive at such times than resentment.

Observation

My husband just made an astute observation. We watch Fox & Friends every morning and they often play a commercial from a home security company that shows a guy breaking in and scaring the homeowner, then shows the homeowner talking immediately to the security company who sends help.

Rick said that they needed to make a commercial more appropriate for Texas, in which the homeowner says, "No rush. I just shot the bastard."

Plumb wore out

Today and tomorrow are Picture Days at school, and since I'm the Head Honcho In Charge Of Picture Days and stuff like that, I've been fairly swamped. I had to be at school this morning at 6AM to open the gym for the photographer so he could set up his stuff.

I do NOT like getting up early. I'm getting older, and I almost unfailingly wake up thirty minutes to an hour before my alarm is set to go off, even if my alarm is set to 4:30AM like it was this morning. I woke up at 3:30 and there was no chance I was going back to sleep. I thought it patently unfair.

It's time, sir

Louisiana Justice of the Peace Resigns

This story was just ridiculous from the get-go. Why was this person in any position of authority anymore?

I won't say that I don't believe that idiots like this don't exist. I know they do. I know a few of them. I will say, however, that attitudes like this man's are ridiculous and stupid and misinformed, and the more marginalized they are, the fewer of them there will be until they finally die away without reproducing any more of themselves.

And as for that, the whole idea of marriage between two human beings as "interracial" is also ridiculous. We're not separate species.

Well, except for Barney Frank and Henry Waxman. I ain't any kin to those freakazoids.

Skin color don't mean much

I've been trying to tell people this for years... the color of your skin is such a ridiculous and immaterial way of classifying humankind.

Your Family May Once Have Been A Different Color

To begin, please point your elbow to the ceiling.

Then imagine yourself naked.

Then look at the patch of skin on the inside of your upper arm, the part of you that almost never sees the sun.

Whatever color you see there is what experts call your basic skin color, according to professor Nina Jablonski, head of the Penn State Department of Anthropology.

And that color, the one you have now, says Jablonski, is very probably not the color your ancient ancestors had — even if you think your family has been the same color for a long, long time.

It's about time we got past the issue, I'm thinking. And yet our country -- nay, our WORLD -- has been caught up in the romance of Our First Black President... it's the dumbest thing ever, really. So last century.

From me to you

My hope for 2009 is that you might experience true peace... in your heart, in your family, among your friends, and even in our society... and that you will discover the source of this true peace, that it cannot be bought or conjured up or even fought for.

And I give you a humble smile, from a pale freckled middle-aged girl, because even in the midst of chaotic and often unpleasant family trials, I *can* smile.



I can smile because I have a supernatural peace in my heart.

How do I know it's supernatural?

Because it doesn't come from the approval of those I love (that's not always reliable), from my innate strength of character (ain't got it, never have!), or from material abundance (pshyeah, right).

I lay down and slept,
yet I woke up in safety,
for the LORD was watching over me.
I am not afraid of ten thousand enemies
who surround me on every side.
Psalm 3:5-6

Peace be with you... and you... and you... and you over there, too. Peace, and a nice nap from time to time. Thank you so much for your friendship and love and support.

Advice for today

VDH

We really really really need to listen to this guy more:

Victor Davis Hanson - Ten Random, Politically Incorrect Thoughts

1. Four years of high-school Latin would dramatically arrest the decline in American education. In particular, such instruction would do more for minority youths than all the 'role model' diversity sermons on Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Montezuma, and Caesar Chavez put together. Nothing so enriches the vocabulary, so instructs about English grammar and syntax, so creates a discipline of the mind, an elegance of expression, and serves as a gateway to the thinking and values of Western civilization as mastery of a page of Virgil or Livy (except perhaps Sophocles's Antigone in Greek or Thucydides' dialogue at Melos). After some 20 years of teaching mostly minority youth Greek, Latin, and ancient history and literature in translation (1984-2004), I came to the unfortunate conclusion that ethnic studies, women studies--indeed, anything "studies"-- were perhaps the fruits of some evil plot dreamed up by illiberal white separatists to ensure that poor minority students in the public schools and universities were offered only a third-rate education.

Nineteen eighty-four

'Twas fully twenty-four years ago when this photo of me was taken:



Dang, I was green. There was so much I feared that needn't have been feared... so much I thought I knew that I really had not the first clue... so much that went untapped because I had so very little self-confidence and self-assurance.

I know exactly what I would tell her (if I could go back in time) because it's the same thing I tell my students every single day:

1. You are wonderful and beautiful and awesome, just the way you are.
2. You aren't now who you will eventually be.
3. Everyone else around you hates something about themselves, too.
4. No boy/girl is worth as much emotional energy as you expend on them.

I know it probably falls on deaf ears, or at least insensate ones. But I have to keep telling them in hopes that someone WILL hear and overcome all the needless angst I suffered through.

In college, I sat down to speak with a professor who also did one-on-one counseling. He told me something that literally formed the foundation of my emotional recovery: It's Not Your Fault. I was laboring under a huge burden that whatever was wrong must necessarily be because I failed somehow to reach my potential or my capability or whatever. He began the liberation process in my mind by freeing me from that responsibility.

These are things that I wish I could've grasped back in the fall of 1984 as a senior in high school. Alas, the innate self-centeredness of youth and the inherent assumption that everything's new and has never happened before EVER -- these are what prevented me from progressing. Maybe I'll make headway with a few others, maybe not. It's worth a try.

I'm sleepy

I think I will go to bed early.

I feel really really bad for Rick, though. He worked until 3AM this morning, came home and slept a couple of hours, got up with us and took Alice to her neuro appointment in Dallas and spent all day down there. By the time they got back, he had to go to work again. No sleep at all.

I'm hoping tomorrow he'll be able to catch up.

In the meantime, nighty-night y'all. Tonight has been shockingly peaceful, so I know several of youse is prayin' fer me. Much obliged, I am.

Doormat at Isaac's piano lesson

(You can buy one like it here)

This is not looking very good, people.

Over at Wizbang I read some tea leaves (apparently it looks like the European banking giant Fortis is on the brink of failure now, as is Wachovia):

We are witnessing a failure in government. Our Congress cannot work together to provide an immediate fix to a problem it created in the first place: forcing the American financial sector to extend mortgages to those who were high risk borrowers in order to champion to the American people that more minorities own homes than ever. That worked well under a booming economy. But when the natural cycle of economics turned downward, fear dismissed became reality unavoidable. The house of cards came tumbling down.

And even still, amid all the haggling and fighting going on in Congress over how to shore up the financial cash crisis, not a word is mentioned about changing the counter-intuitive practices forced upon mortgage lenders in the first place. In this respect, it's not unlike how Congress and the White House chose to address illegal immigration: by trying to deal with those already here first rather than initially addressing the cause: the influx of illegals that continues to flow unabated.

Make no mistake, if we wake to Black Monday this week, the responsibility lies squarely upon Congress and the electorate which has put them there, not our banks. Our banks' hands were forced by mandates from Washington, not their boardrooms.

I'm not officially freaked out or anything, but this is serious shizzle. I am firmly against the bailout, though, for the same reasons I'm against the confiscatory taxes we all have to pay -- it's MY MONEY and it ought to be my decision where it goes.

Opening night

Well, Two-ey ate Mr. Mushnik and we all learned our valuable lesson: Don't Feed The Plant.

Tomorrow afternoon we'll do it all again, and then I can pack up my synth and my amp and go home. No, I probably haven't really learned my own valuable lesson -- to say NO -- but perhaps I can feel justified in declining to obligate myself for a while.

Consideration goes a LONG way, lady

Kate Penland should have a little consideration for others... and so should other moms of babies and toddlers who take them on an airplane.

I've taken babies and toddlers on planes several times and wasn't in the least considerate of the other passengers. One time I took Martha on a plane from Des Moines to Dallas and for the final ten minutes of the flight, Martha screamed at the top of her lungs because her ears hurt. AND she puked. Everywhere. She wasn't even two yet, so there wasn't any reasoning with her.

Shame on me. That flight was totally full and there were people on both sides of us who had to endure it. If I had had the least amount of kindness and foresight, I'd've given her some Benadryl or Dramamine before we even got onto the flight, to save her and our seatmates all that trauma.

Now that my kids are a little older and able to contain themselves, I look back in horror at what I put people through. On my flight to DC recently, the toddler right next to me shrieked so loudly it felt like an icepick being slammed into my ear canal. And I had no choice but to sit there and take it.

There are harmless substances which can elicit sleep in little kids, and if you have ANY consideration for the poor people next to you who can't get away from you, you'll give them to your kid.

I'm sure I'll get hate-mail for this stance, but I think that too many moms of little kids don't consider the effect their kid has on everyone else. Sure, you may be used to his skull-drilling shrieks, but no-one else around you is, and you really ought to think about how they feel having to listen to it. Nevermind how much they appreciate being covered in projectile puke.

I'd get arrested if I lit up a cigarette on a plane -- not because I'm harming myself, but because I'm a nuisance to those around me who can't get away from the smoke. A screaming toddler is just as much of a nuisance. Think about the rest of the passengers and slip him a Mickey, won't you please?

Classy girl

I don't care what anyone says; Katie Holmes has class.

Katie and Suri turned away from Hugo Boss' party

Tom Cruise's wife and daughter, who are in [Berlin] while the movie star shoots controversial new film Valkyrie, were reportedly turned away from the party, thrown by designer Hugo Boss, because the guest list was closed and there were already too many people inside the event. But Holmes wasn't about the let the snub ruin her day - she spent the afternoon with her one-year-old daughter in a nearby park. A bystander tells WENN, "She was all smiles. You would never have thought she had just been turned away from a party.

I wonder how many other celebs would've behaved that way? Certainly not Elton John. Or Naomi Campbell. Both of whom are waaay older than Kat and should know better.

And yes, I think she probably made a huge mistake hooking up with FreakBoy, but lots of people make really stupid, life-altering decisions like marriage when they're too young to know better.

Memo to San Francisco Area: They're Coming

Jehovah's Witnesses converge on Bay Area

She measures success carefully. If she can share one Bible verse with one person, Lovelace believes she's been successful.

After 33 years of door-to-door proselytizing, Lovelace can count five people she's led to Bible study, which led to baptism. She said biblical knowledge helped one person stop having sex outside of marriage, become a more responsible parent, and put down the bottle.

"You can't put a price tag on a life," she said.

She measures success carefully because her future depends on it. My understanding of JWism is that it is works-based, and if this poor woman is convinced she's justified by her works, then by golly she's gotta do this if she hopes for any sort of eternal reward in that system. And you'd better be keeping track of all the stuff you've done.

Seems to me like she believes she CAN put a price tag on a life; she's doing her darnedest to buy her way into eternity.

It's not so unlike many others who don't claim JWism, though... if I do enough good stuff, it'll outweigh the bad stuff and I'll make it in. Isn't that the logical way of looking at things?

Umm, I feel compelled to point out that your logic is dooming you. Yeah, I'll be nice to you and share jokes with you and treat you like a human being, because I'm a nice person. But you really are doomed, eventually. If the idea of this bothers you, just talk to God about it. All on your own, without anyone "helping" you. Just ask him. He'll answer you, if you're listening.

Not Knowing

Even though I've always felt I was pretty good at Not Knowing, I find that I'm really not that great at it after all.

I consider myself to be something of a random, chaotic personality... but I'm really just fooling myself. I like to have structure imposed upon me from outside of myself. I like for that structure to be large and roomy, allowing me to fill up the space inside however I please... but I crave stability.

And we just haven't had much of that this past year.

I'm tired... a bit dejected... troubled... and questioning my capabilities. I suppose it's only natural. Having babies is natural, too, but it hurts like a mutha.

I'd like to be patient, but I know that school districts are already busy interviewing candidates for open positions. I haven't gotten a single call from any of them. And I've been nixed by Valero (although I'm not hugely disappointed by that because I'm not sure I'd fit in so well in that environment). For a person who tends to internalize everything anyway, this is extremely discouraging.

What, do I have some kind of flashing light on my forehead that says "DO NOT HIRE" on it? Sheesh.

If I haven't gotten a single call for an interview by the first of June, I'm getting my CDL and going to truck-driving school. Breaker-one-nine, come-back?

A new experience for me today

After a disastrous bout with some rather old and sticky nail polish, I realized that my feet were in terrible shape and that I desperately needed a pedicure. After school today I headed for Sherman to seek out said services and found a great place in the mall. As is so often my experience, nail salons seem to be the purview of a Vietnamese family, and this one was no different. The mom was the one who worked on my toesies and feetsies and legsies (I love the sea-salt scrub they do on the legs... wow) and she and I chatted quite a lot. While she was working on my feet, I started noticing how pathetic my hands were looking. I haven't bitten my nails for a really long time now, but my fingernails have always been paper-thin. Now that I'm older, they've gotten brittle, too. They break off and leave ragged, short edges that are rather ugly.

Since I'm a pianist, I've never spent much time beautifying my nails or growing them long. My hands are purely practical and don't need to waste time being beautiful. But today they looked especially sad.

Vietnamese Mom offered to do a manicure on me as well, with a price break since I was already getting the deluxe pedicure. I took her up on it and sat down at the table. I've always been a bit curious about artificial nails, but since playing the piano and blogging have been the primary occupation of my fingers, I haven't wanted to get the long claw-like fake fingernails. But I asked her if the artificial nails could be made short, and she said, "Of course. Any length you like. You play the piano? I make them short but still very nice-looking." I had only thought to have my hands massaged and my nails buffed, but the price break was tempting and I was really enjoying my chat with her.

Come to find out, she was a college graduate from a Vietnamese college and had been a teacher. I had just felt in my bones that she hadn't always been a humble nail tech. I told her that I knew we must have something in common. She smiled warmly.

She and her family have lived in the US for twelve years. For 12 years, she has left behind her education, her status, her culture, everything -- just to partake in the freedom that the US offers. She was willing to take on the form of a lowly servant simply to live here. She and her family had assimilated into US culture while retaining their own identities. This is what the American Dream ought to look like. What a sacrifice this woman made, just to come here and exfoliate people's feet.

I will return to her family's shop and hopefully will continue having a conversation with her.

At any rate, today was a new experience for me. I now have ten lovely nails for the first time in my entire life:



They're not Elvira-ish claws; I think they're rather tasteful, especially for me. My small, square little paws just wouldn't look right with long, fancy French tips or diamonds or such anyway.

Alec Baldwin strikes again

This time, his clearly uncontrolled rage issues just exploded in his 11-year-old daughter's ear. A snippet of this fine, upstanding and ragingly liberal actor's diatribe:

You made me feel like **** and you've made me feel like a fool over and over and over again. And this crap you pull on me with this god**** phone situation that you would never dream of doing to your mother and you do it to me constantly and over and over again. I am going to get on a plane and I am going to straighten your ass out when I see you.

Do you understand me? I am going to really make sure you get it. That I'm going to get on a plane and I'm gonna turn around and come home. So you better be ready Friday the 20th to meet with me. So I'm going to let you know how I feel, about what a rude little pig you really are. You are a rude thoughtless little pig. Okay?

His spokesperson gave this statement:

In the best interest of the child, Alec will do what the mother is pathologically incapable of doing…keeping his mouth shut and obeying the court order. The mother and her lawyer leaked this sealed material in violation of a court order. Although Alec acknowledges that he should have used different language in parenting his child, everyone who knows him privately knows what he has been put through for the past six years.

What he's been PUT THROUGH? Oh, give me a king-sized break. Sounds to me like he doesn't have the first clue about parenting. Not that that surprises me or anything.

I feel for that kid. He's got some serious rage issues and needs to deal with them before he's allowed any sort of visitation or custody. An adult would recognize that his daughter isn't the one he should be berating... and for that matter, if he wants any sort of relationship with her at all, he's going to have to suck it up and be nice to Mom.

Rod Dreher interviews Camille Paglia

And it's a gem. She and I may not agree on many things, but she's one sage lady.

Camille said that she's been really disturbed over the last five years by the lack of knowledge among her students of basic Biblical concepts, characters, themes and motifs -- the forgetting of which makes so much Western art, literature and culture opaque. Get this:

"The worst moment was a year and a half ago. I have a class on song lyrics, and I was presenting the Negro spiritual 'Go Down, Moses.' I was talking about how it's a coded message of liberation, a way for slaves to make political statements without being recognized. I suddenly realized to my absolute horror that so many of these students had no idea who Moses was! In this class of 30, not one white person, only African-Americans, understood the Biblical references. The only people I'm getting at my school [Philadelphia's University of the Arts] who recognize the Bible are African-Americans. And the lower the social class of the white person, the more likely they are to recognize the Bible. Lots of these white students, if they go to church, it's all feel good social activism. There's no preaching anymore. The Bible is one of the West's foundational texts, and they don't know it anymore."

Our interview ended with this grim observation about the West: "People here live in a bubble. They think it's going to go on forever."