I am not responsible for the content of the above ads, which are often hilariously mis-matched.

prank monkey

St. Ned's women's retreat is coming up in a week. I have a cool roommate and we need suggestions for pranks we can play on people. Last year I tried to get a short-sheeting thing going, but it was kind of lame. Any ideas?
link | Comments []

[back to top]

commune

There's an old joke that if you put two Episcopalians in a room together, they will immediately try to build community.

I've started to look at my own behavior in community lately, and I'm just not that impressed.

It seems like I always perch myself on the edge. There are always plenty of things I use to justify that, but the truth is, I'm the one putting myself there.

At St. Ned's, of course, the separation is that I am Staff, and therefore perhaps Part of the Problem. As I've written before, it frequently puts me in difficult and awkward positions when people don't agree with something that's happening at St. Ned's. So I am in the community and outside of it at once. I think that's one of the reasons why I am so sad about the fairy godchild and her family leaving - her mom has always been the person I could talk to about the weirdness of church staffness, since she has worked at churches a lot longer than I have. But it's easier to talk about missing the baby, you know?

Skool is all about community, too, but again I'm finding myself on the edge. Ok, so maybe I'm not the typical student - I'm way younger, I have the sense of humor that I have, I come from a parish that doesn't really do the traditional liturgy we're being taught, I just got married, my life isn't all that settled, and maybe my identity is a little more in flux than some other people's are. See, I told you I can find ways to justify being on the edge.

I love my classes, and am genuinely jazzed by the stuff I'm learning, but I dread the rest of it - for example, we're all supposed to eat lunch together, which is just the middle school cafeteria all over again for me, and I feel defective because by the time lunch rolls around, I've burned a big chunk of my People Calories for the day and I just want to set up my laptop at the free DSL cafe up the street and write, or just sit and read one of the free weeklies at the taqueria. Skool is making me feel sort of defective in general. I'm trying to pinpoint what's causing that so that I can see what can be done to change it. I think I'm going to demand my solo lunch at least on Saturdays, because otherwise it's ten straight hours of People and I just can't deal.

So, yes, I am depressed. Today is retail therapy day - I'm going to a sample sale with Ryan and I always feel better after I hang out with her.
link | Comments []

[back to top]

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

disconnect

This is exactly how I DON'T feel today.

That's the fairy godchild in the warm sweater and hat I knit for her because she's moving to Montana in a little over a week. I'm trying not to think about what that's going to be like.
link | Comments []

[back to top]

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

'cause your devices are not working for you anymore

I'm a fucking mess, people. Seriously.

Skool is really bringing out some of the most unappealing parts of my emotional life. Namely, I'm this walking anxiety bomb with a tiny little fuse in it. The vast majority of this anxiety really doesn't intersect with reality in any meaningful way, but it's still there, making me act like a Complete Nutjob. I'm on meds, which help, but I think they've been overpowered and knocked to the floor by the force of my current anxiety-fest.

Naturally, my preferred thing to do would be to find a way to avoid these feelings, but it's kind of looking like avoidance isn't compatible with deacon skool. If I want to go forward, I'm going to have to accept that part of the ride is going to be finding a way to make peace with the anxiety creature. Which will, um, suck, quite a bit, for an undertermined length of time.

It has been a while since I've had that really intense, skin-rubbed-raw inside-out feeling that is often part of the Christian experience, when the comfortable things aren't comfortable and the new things don't really fit yet. It looks like I'm in for another round of that, though.
link | Comments []

[back to top]

I don't know how to break the news, but it's pretty clear you'll be asked to choose between what you lack and what you excuse

St. Ned's is a polling place today, and at times the line has gone out the door and snaked around the courtyard, and people have been waiting an hour or so to vote. It's pretty sweet. I put out airpots of coffee and pitchers of water this morning when the lines were at their longest. Also a stack of our 50th anniversary mugs, with a sign inviting people to take them. Which they won't, because these things are a freaking curse. We ordered waaaay too many of them, plus they're not all that attractive to begin with (I can say that because I designed them), and we still have cases of them a year after the anniversary celebration. Right now there is a sign on the boxes which says, "Lo, I will be with you always until the end of the age."

I cast my ballot, I mean, played the Voter Video Game, in Oakland this morning on my way to work. Smooth procedure overall.
link | Comments []

[back to top]