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Thursday, March 31, 2005
I've spent a bit of time inside Walgreen's over the past few days. Which has meant being exposed to Half Price Easter Candy.
Not being made of stone and all, I have picked up some Cadbury Mini Eggs at bargain prices. The various bunnies in cheap chocolate stared at me blankly while I rummaged around for the dark purple bag of goodness.
I saw a chocolate cross at one place, which led me to wonder if there is such a thing as a chocolate crucifix. I wouldn't know how to eat one, honestly. Chocolate bunnies are to be eaten ears-first as God intended, of course, but I just don't think I could bite the head off Jesus. There's a theology paper in this somewhere.
I did find a mold for the DIY crowd: chocolate crucifix mold. Can also be used for making soap.
Hey, that new issue of BUST is on your newsstand now! I really appreciate all of the great email I've gotten about my article, and I am So. Completely. Behind. in my responses. It means a lot to me; I was kind of nervous about putting all that out there, wondering what kind of reaction it would receive. So, thanks for reading.
And thanks to whomever is buying all those wtfwjd? and Christian Who Thinks shirts. My goal is to eventually be able to pay my deacon skool tuition entirely with wtfwjd? proceeds, because that would really impress the Commission on Ministry. Or, you know, not.
I'm still trying not to freak out about money all the time, because it is tiresome. But I have to pay my therapist out of pocket and then get reimbursed and I'm kind of wondering where the money is going to come from, even though they've slid me way down on the ol' sliding fee scale. Aren't I supposed to be a fucking grownup or something? I know I wouldn't be like this if I were living more in the happy Jesusy part of my brain and less in the crazy fearful reptile anxiety part of my brain. Sigh. Oh me of little faith.
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Wednesday, March 30, 2005
So, the computers freaked out while I was away from the office yesterday taking care of Dennis. The machines, they are against me.
Specifically, MY computer has imploded and is off getting a shiny new motherboard and a metric buttload of RAM (this will probably get me some weird new google hits) and a faster processor, which is all lovely except I have no idea how I'm going to crank out a bulletin this week. Do you think I could get away with just re-running last week's? Or maybe I could send out an email telling everyone to just not come to church, since it's going to be that same old Doubting Thomas story and you can only do so much with that for a sermon, and didn't we just go to church a whole bunch last week? Yeah, we're, um, closed this Sunday because Sara's computer died.
It's possible that I have a skewed idea of how important the freaking bulletin is, huh?
Also, I feel a bit wiped out and queasy and I'm trying to tell myself that I am not getting sick, because that is firmly in the Not An Option category.
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Tuesday, March 29, 2005
I stayed home with Dennis today and took him to the doctor. His fever came back with great enthusiasm last night, and he looked just terrible this morning. They didn't rehydrate him, since he is able to keep some liquids down now, but they sent him for a chest x-ray since he has a really nasty cough. The x-ray was clear, fortunately. The dr. says he should start feeling slightly human again by tomorrow or the next day. And then we can wait to see if I'm going to get it next.
The best super-happy news is that the fairy godchild and her parents are coming to visit in April, and will even be here for my birthday. Yay!
I'm trying to come up with my next major knitting project. I'm doing boring diagonal baby blankets right now, just to keep my hands busy, since I'm not feeling inspired.
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Monday, March 28, 2005
Dennis is doing a lot better tonight. The anti-nausea prescription seems to be doing its job. Actual food has been consumed, and his fever has finally slipped under 100°. He'll be staying home from work tomorrow to get some strength back and rehydrate, but I don't think he'll need to go to the dr. for an IV if he keeps on this trajectory. Yay! I'll assign Clyde to sit on him all day and keep him quiet.
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I'm off today for Easter Monday (last year @ St. Ned's the staff didn't take it off, and sat around at staff meeting staring blankly at one another and trying to form sentences). Dennis is also off since he's off on Mondays, so of course we had great plans for today (wokka-chika wokka wokka chika wokka-chika).
Except...no. He is really, really sick. I just talked to the dr., because Dennis has been vomiting for twelve hours and has a slight fever and chills. The dr. is calling in a prescription which will hopefully do the job on the vomiting. While I'm gone to the pharmacy, I can be replaced by a recording that says, "here, have some more ginger ale."
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Sunday, March 27, 2005
I did impromptu duty at Easter service this morning - TheRev needed to take care of something so he handed off his paten of bread to me and I got to distribute it, which I had never done before.
So, I just want to apologize to everyone at my half of the altar.
Some of you received giant chunks of our very dense bread, which I'm sure you could barely swallow in one bite. Some of you received only a tiny piece that was rapidly disintegrating. That particular piece of bread was, um, challenging in its consistency, and I'm sorry for the random bread activity.
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With much fear and trembling, I went to a new therapist on Friday.
My biggest fear was getting someone who would treat my faith as a mental illness (which, btw, isn't something I feel like debating) and we'd spend so much time dealing with that, we'd never get to things that are actually sucking. But I found someone through the clergy wellness resources list @ diocal, so they're faith-friendly and I don't have to backfill about The Process, etc.
I do not have a good history with therapy, because, well, EverythingIsFineGirl usually shows up. Seriously, I have a vast history of paying people to listen to me tell them that I'm doing Just Fine. File that under 'some fucked up shit right there, yo.'
I had a few moments where I had to consciously decide not to gloss over stuff, but I think I managed to be real. I was really mopey yesterday, since it stirred up a lot of things I thought I was done with.
The Easter Vigil last night pulled me right out of myself, though. It's my favorite service of the year, because it's kind of the stealth service for the faithful. Visitors come on Sunday, not on Saturday night. I knew almost everyone who was there. The passing of the peace reminded me of the way we do it at skool, with everyone going free-range into the aisles and across the church to spread hugs around. It was quite the love-fest.
The service starts in darkness, with everyone holding a candle. I helped out at the altar, holding a candle for SassyPriest so that she could see the altar book and sing the Exultet. It will be at least two years before anyone will ask me to sing it, since it is supposed to be sung by the deacon if one is available. Maybe if I can push EverythingIsFineGirl out, it will make room for EverythingIsInTuneGirl.
The lights come on halfway through the service, and everyone yells The Lord is Risen! Alleluia, alleluia! and then we have communion. I was on chalice last night, and I think it went ok. No one went home with massive wine stains on their clothing, anyway.
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia, alleluia!
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Thursday, March 24, 2005
I started this a while back and finally finished it: The Stations of the Kitsch. As you'll see, in several places I used the station as a suggestion. Ok, look, I just didn't know where else to put those Archie comics.
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Ah, Maundy Thursday. I'm ashamed to admit that I've been so enthralled with my own first-world suffering this week, I've barely entered into Jesus' suffering.
The thing I'm most happy about today is that Dennis is coming home. He has been in New York since Monday, covering the first of the Black Crowes reunion shows, and being alone with this brain has not been much fun.
I'm also happy that my copy of BUST finally arrived in the mail yesterday. Except I can't bring myself to actually look at it for some reason. I have it sitting across the room like my article is some sort of toxic waste that I can't touch. I'll take it to work today and let someone else read it and maybe that will break the spell.
And, hopefully, I will be able to breathe on my way to work today, unlike yesterday, when I starting having some kind of low-grade panic thing. I so wanted to turn the car around and just go home and have the kitty bitch me out because Daddy isn't home and he's the only one who serves her tuna just right. I got through it, and made it to the office, but it was yet another entry in the I Am A Wreck column. I know this is kind of a transitional place and it won't kill me, but I'm really really sick of it.
I figured out how to Shazam! myself into being EverythingIsFineGirl, my superhero alter-ego, early on in my life. I needed her then, and I don't need her so much now, but she's hard to get rid of. So I'm stuck with something that keeps me from really entering into authentic relationships with people. This wasn't so much of an issue back when almost no one wanted to be in authentic relationship with me, but it's something I gotta deal with now.
One of the problems of being EverythingIsFineGirl is that it is so freaking isolating, especially if you lose sight of the fact that most people are also putting on their SuperSuits every morning in order to face the world. We're all broken, but the effort of keeping up the appearance of being Just Fine must short-circuit the part of our eyes that sees that. I guess our own brokeness starts to seem larger than everyone else's, so we need to hide it that much more, which prevents us from really connecting.
I'm completely terrified right now, because I can see that this outdated way of setting myself apart has to go, but part of me doesn't want to give it up. It's this huge thing in my path, keeping me from moving forward.
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Wednesday, March 23, 2005
I started writing a comments-novel and decided to just turn it into a post. In response to anon's comment to the previous post (why do so many people with that name post comments on blogs?):
as far as i'm concerned, THIS is one of the major problems of christianity. the gigantic self-hate-fests that it creates. count me out.
Actually, I think my particular brand of self-loathing has more to do with the twenty-plus years of messed-up secular life I lived before coming to faith. It's not really rooted in the life I have now, it's more old...stuff.
The reason that I'm dealing with it so acutely right now is that, for the first time, I have the opportunity to not live this way, and it's scaring the shit out of me. I have vast layers of protective covering, and while I have worn a lot of them away over the past few years, lately I seem to have hit some that are made out of whatever the black box in airplanes is made out of. So I'm in this really icky place where I can see just how destructive and isolating my little facade is, but I'm not able to actually drop it right now.
Jesus doesn't cause the self-hate; Jesus is a way out of the self-hate, but the only way out is through. Forgiveness is not just a bitch to give, it's a bitch to accept.
I've been thinking about confession a lot lately. I may end up seeking out a confessor at some point for the rite of reconciliation. I know that, technically, I do not need to do that, that the general confession in the liturgy is sufficient. But there's something appealing about a specific absolution, an absolution which cannot be rationalized away. Maybe my brain needs an extra whack with the forgiveness stick in order to really understand, because I do not live like a person whose sins are forgiven.
The title of the post is from the amazing song Forgiveness by Patty Griffin.We are swimming with the snakes at the bottom of the well
So silent and peaceful in the darkness where we fell
But we are not snakes and what's more we never will be
And if we stay swimming here forever we will never be free
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Tuesday, March 22, 2005
I'm entirely too amused that there is a book called Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters. One another love as have loved you I, you will! Or maybe it's just a plea for us to forgive Lucas for Jar Jar Binks, as Christ would. After he got his $8 back.
I'm kind of a wreck at the moment. (I've been trying to think of a good Star Wars metaphor to use here, but I am all out of Ewoks, I'm so lost without you. Oh, crap, I just combined Star Wars and horrible Air Supply. I need to be put down for a nap.)
So, does everyone go through life feeling like there's a rich gooey caramel ribbon of unloveableness running through them, and that it can remain hidden only through diligent effort? No? Ok, then I'm more fucked up than I thought. Figures.
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Monday, March 21, 2005
So, does getting a pedicure on Maundy Thursday count as footwashing? I'm just wondering.
What? That misses the whole point? Ok. But it seemed like a plausible excuse to hit the place up the street that throws in a free manicure. Oh, right, I don't have any fingernails because I have chewed them down to the bone. I have a tiny little anxiety problem. No, really.
Maybe candles would help; like this candle, which claims to smell like Jesus. Next they'll come out with one called Smells Like Teen Jesus. Mmmmm....Jesusy.
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Sunday, March 20, 2005
the number was 35 (which is how old on I'll be on April 15), and no one guessed it! dlr guessed 36, and no one guessed 34, so she is the winner! I am assembling my Box of Random Prizes!
Thanks!
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Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. I, on the other hand, am at home with a Headache of Death, which I have been enjoying since about 4:30 this morning. This is annoying because I really love the passion reading at the Palm Sunday service, and the holy-water-flinging to bless the palms.
The word for the holy water flinger thing is aspergillum, which is so much fun to say. aspergillum aspergillum aspergillum. When I googled that to make sure I was spelling it correctly, one of the ads on the side of the results was for Sexy Aspergillum Singles. When you want a hot babe who can fling holy water?
Of course, then I had to put in other random words, hoping for Sexy Robot Singles or Sexy Kraft Singles (it's the cheesiest! rowwr!) but no such luck. I did get Sexy Zombie Singles, but I'll let theyrecoming.com handle that one.
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Friday, March 18, 2005
I've been messing with the code for the site a bit to try to fix a glitch in the comments. Hopefully, it has worked. But! I figure the best way to find out would be to generate a mess of comments, so that's what I'm doing.
CONTEST!!!!!
I've written a number between 1 and 100 on a piece of paper. You have to post a comment, with your email address and your guess for the number.
The winner will get a box of Sara Schwag, which will include...well, it could include just about anything. You're taking a risk. But I can promise at the very least there WILL be a windup monkey wedding favor and some WTFWJD? stuff. It's not as cool as the contests at One Good Thing, but that's because I do not own a sex toy shop. (yet?)
If the whole thing goes kablooey and the comments break again, I'll re-run the contest later. Offer void where anyone would be a dick about it. I'll run this through let's say...Sunday night at 7:00 p.m.
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The Fairy Godchild's new sweater and hat:
Full details of this project are in my knitting journal over on sewgeeky.com.
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Wednesday, March 16, 2005
 I have an article in the April/May issue of Bust magazine. I've gotten my first piece of fan mail about it, so I guess it's in some people's hands (not MINE, though - must have Dennis check Cody's tomorrow).
The article is called Who's down with G.O.D.? (not my title, but I like a good Saved! reference as much as the next person). Buy the issue so that there will be a sales spike and they'll want to have me write again.
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Monday, March 14, 2005
There's new stuff in The Passion of the Tchotchke.
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Sunday, March 13, 2005
Clyde vs. her natural enemy - Dennis' feet.
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Saturday, March 12, 2005
I skipped chapel this morning to finish up my sermon, which I finally started putting together at around 11:30 p.m. last night. Starting earlier would have messed with my freaking out, after all. Anyway, I slapped it together, and got my butt to Homelitics class, because that's the kind of responsible person I am. (it's ok to make a little snorty sound with your nose here)
We split the class up into two groups of five (We drew numbers again, and the even numbers went one place and the odds the other. Not surprisingly, I was with the Odd group), so that we could have plenty of time to give feedback. Some people had wedding sermons, some had funerals. I ended up being the only funeral sermon among weddings; I can only imagine that the other group, which had all funerals, was a bit depressing after a while.
I was the third person to go, so it wasn't quite as excruciating as being number 7 last time. And, as the prophet Ryan predicted, the basic feedback was, "great, but you need to slow way down. WAAAAY down."
This is not even a bit surprising. If I ever do get a collar, I think it needs to be an electroshock model. Someone can sit in back of the church and jolt me if I need to slow that mustang down.
The teacher had me read my last paragraph with more "white space" around each sentence, so I could see how it felt to go slower. It felt impossible, basically. I'll be working on this for, oh, the rest of my life.
I got the same buzz off preaching that I did last time, though. It was so much fun.
Liturgics was good, even though it involved singing and I think I've made it pretty clear how I feel about that. We talked about baptisms and the way to pour water into the font for maximum dramatic effect. This is the class where I feel the stupidest, since we learn nosebleed-high church liturgy and St. Ned's ain't that kind of joint. So I feel a bit klutzy and inept.
I'm still thinking about dropping my two Sunday classes, but I really want to go to them tomorrow, so I will. Then I'll see how it feels. I'm actually happy when I'm at school, and that is interfering with my resolve to cut back. I'm praying about it. I think it would be ok to cut back; my calling isn't stuck in a box with a bomb that will detonate if I'm not ordained by 2007. Hmmm. That's a reality show waiting to happen.
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Friday, March 11, 2005
Practical question. We have killed yet another CD player. And by we of course I mean Dennis, who reviews stacks and stacks of music every month.
So now we're thinking about a replacement (with totally imaginary money, since the Beetle wanted a new Mass Air Flow Sensor this month, and new tires, and new spark plugs and it's just being very very demanding). Any thoughts?
I don't think that just getting something more high-end would be the answer, since what he's doing is wearing the thing out through constant use, and eventually the motor goes. I don't know if really swanky machines use motors that are so much better that they would outlast 3 or 4 cheap ones.
Are there flip-top models that don't have a drawer motor to wear out? What do DJs use? We need something that will deal with burned CDs, since he gets a lot of advance copies/demos that came off someone's computer. Help me, my people!
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We have a St. Ned's Workbook for Lent. The next section is about spiritual gifts, and in one of the exercises, you list the messages you have gotten about your giftedness from society, your church, and yourself. I was working it over in PageMaker and TheRev said that, if I did it, I would have to fill in
society: "get a real job!" | church: "wow! you're great!" | me: "I suck"
Which is pretty much me in a nutshell. I really hate being so scared all the time. It's just that I keep meeting all these really cool, spiritually together people who are deacons, and...I'm so not, you know?
I guess in some ways the school thing is just part of a bigger faith crisis, because in order to make this all work, God has to be with me. When I get out of school after three years, I get another bachelor's degree to hang next to...wait, I have no idea where my diploma from Parsons is. It was pretty, though. Design school does get you a pretty diploma. And then I'll basically have a second job doing deacon stuff, because I still have to have a job that pays me actual money with which to buy kibble for Clyde's headhole, and you don't get paid for being a deacon. So...yeah. Make that one work on paper. $4k a year for school, plus the expenses of the ordination process...for a job with no paycheck. So I can't even tell myself that at least there will be an economic benefit to going to school, that I'll be making shitloads of money when I get out. Nuh-uh. So this has to be all about Jesus, or there's no point. And we are perhaps not getting along as well as we could be.
I know I need to find a way to embrace my calling and surrender to it, since running away from it clearly is not working. Of course, I have no idea what that looks like. The only mental picture I get is that scene in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, where Kumar is frolicking with the big anthropomorphic bag of weed. And I'm pretty sure that's not it.
Meanwhile, I'm pretty much fucked for this weekend since I haven't gotten much homework done this week between the crying jags and the freaking out. Sigh. And I have to find some social service agency that will take me on for field ed next year, and I'm coming up kind of blank on that. I have to do 120 hours of field ed per semester starting in September. Next year is an agency, and the year after that is in an actual parish where actual parishioners will get to evaluate me. Not that this makes me hyperventilate or anything. And not that any of this will actually happen if I fail all my classes this semester. I'm needin' a breakthrough here. Stat.
Small steps. The next 48 hours have to be all about small steps. Getting up counts. Getting dressed with shoes on the correct feet and underwear not on backwards counts. Actually, that could count as multiple steps, since I can add in finding socks that match each other. Small steps.
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Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Ah, crap. I'm right back where I was three weeks ago.
I was kind of hoping that my previous stress-fest was mostly caused by having to give my first sermon and that things would be better this time, since I'm actually looking forward to the next one. Which isn't technically, you know, written yet, it's just a bunch of ideas that need to be strung together.
But here I am, freaking out again. The breathing thing isn't as bad, but I had a giant crying jag first thing this morning, the kind where you sound like a little kid, trying to gulp some air.
Right now it seems like I don't want to be a deacon, but my reasons for that are pretty lame and selfish and ultimately rooted in self-doubt and, well, we know how much God cares about that sort of thing. I can think of a bunch of places in both the old and new testaments where he could have said, "You know, you're right, what I'm asking does seem like a bit too much, so never mind, I'll figure out some other way!" But, of course, God's all, oh, just do it and I'll be there to help. So I'm trying to trust in that and get through this.
I wonder if maybe there isn't some wisdom to the way that other dioceses do things, where you can't even start school until you've gone through the whole formal discernment process, with the parish vocations committee and the Commission on Ministry and the bishop and the psych testing and all those hoops.
I haven't done any of that yet, mostly because it scares me, although I was able to convince people that I had other valid reasons. And because the psych testing costs around $1,000. That buys you the Myers-Briggs and the MMPI and some other #2 pencil kind of things, not anything especially deep. They just want to be sure you don't think that you're God. Shit. I'm barely able to pay for school.
So I lack the official stamp on my forehead saying that I am called to this, and I'm actively wrestling with the question SHOULD I be doing this while I'm trying to actually do it, and maybe this was just a completely stupid-ass way to go about things. Gosh, imagine, Sara's tendency to rush the fuck into things is biting her on her ample buttocks. That never happens. Daily.
I feel a bit self-conscious writing about this yet again, since I know it's an extremely boring and very first-world problem. Seriously, just go read Mimi Smartypants or Television Without Pity or something. They are way smarter than I am. Come back in a couple of years to see how it all shakes out.
Dennis is on alert that he's dealing with crazy Sara, and will be taking excellent care of me. Clyde will hopefully be providing much lap-cat purr therapy. I have an appointment to talk to my dr. about maybe adjusting my anxiety meds in the direction of UP, and I see my spiritual director next week and meet with my formation group from school, so I have some resources. I just need to hang on.
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Monday, March 07, 2005
It's wrong to mess with telemarketers, right? But if someone calls St. Ned's and asks to speak with the owner...aren't they just asking for it?
"That would be God, and I can't transfer you to his direct line at this time. I haven't found him to be very interested in saving on his long distance bills, but you're welcome to pray about it."
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Sunday, March 06, 2005
Dennis has a little Clyde snack. Actually, he's kissing her, but it looks like he's taking a bite.
What's different here? How about a lot less hair. Dennis decided to cut all his hair off yesterday, and I didn't see it until this morning because he went to a show right after work and I was quite asleep when he got home. So this morning just about the first thing I said was, "What happened to your HAIR?!?"
I really like it, now that I've determined that he wasn't ambushed by a gang selling hippie hair on the black market.
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Friday, March 04, 2005
In the tradition of the Cavalcade of Bad Nativities, I have started a new section:
The Passion of the Tchotchke: Holy Week Kitsch-o-Rama. I'll be adding to it throughout Lent.
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Thursday, March 03, 2005
I checked the ip addresses to see if it was the same person making all the nasty comments on my last entry, and it was, and I traced the ip to a place called Springfield College, so unfortunately my mental picture is always going to be:  .
Look, spiritual formation is hard, messy work. Going to school part-time is hard (I'm taking the full load of classes, for the record). I'm doing this all on faith (since it certainly doesn't make sense from any practical standpoint), and sometimes my faith is up to the job and sometimes, well, I have to borrow some from someone else until the light breaks through a little bit.
In the obedience to God department, I'm not exactly Abraham. I'm not even Sarah (who did laugh back at the angels, remember).
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Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Hey, you know who rocks like a big rocking thing that is constantly set in 'rock' mode? That would be my husband.
For most of the time we've been married, he has been dealing with Sara's Vocational Crisis-o-Rama, which I have to tell you, does not come with a picnic basket. I myself am sometimes difficult to get along with, especially when I'm dealing with the big bad anxiety creature. But he just goes along, getting up at 6:00 a.m. so he can write before he has to go to his soul-crushing day job at the record store, and still taking care of the apartment and Clyde and me. I don't run out of Diet Coke, or cereal, or clean laundry, and it's pretty much because Dennis is on the job, while I sit and dither about what God wants me to do, which often takes the form of endless games of Poppit while I avoid doing homework. He's just really great, and patient, and sometimes he makes very yummy quiche.
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