"You can't bite ghosts!"

Now Playing: "Liberty!" by Mark O'Connor. Track 1, "Song of the Liberty Bell".

This morning, Rachel had to wake up early to go to a volunteer event for APO, the community service fraternity of which she's a member. I lay in bed like a sluggard and slept for another hour-and-a-half, until eight o'clock. I felt quite energetic, though, when I finally did get out of bed. I dressed, did my devotions, and soused my rosebush with soapy water (die, villainous spider mites!). I ate peanuts and raisins out of a cup for breakfast while I whipped out e-mails to sundry folks (my deep apologies to the Shadow and Anna, to whom my racing fingers were not able to catch up). I also poked around online, searching for course listings for Oxford--which, of course, is too hoity-toity to have anything so plebeian.

Rachel returned at about eleven o'clock. While she read, I frantically finished an e-mail to Elizabeth and packed up. We left the room at the same time--she to the cafeteria to eat lunch, I to the car to drive home. The drive home was uneventful. I listened to Mark O'Connor's fiddle concerto and thought hard about topics for research projects. There seemed to be an unusual number of large raptors out, swinging down the warm noon air.

At home, I found Laura and Stephen polishing off their lunch while watching an exceedingly absurd "Three Stooges" episode. My parents were spending the day in Tulsa, and Philip was working at the Fishers' house. I sat down to eat a bite of lunch while Laura hung about, asking me questions and teasing me.

Before I drove out to the Fishers' house to do therapy with Christa, I drove Stephen downtown. Daniel Thomas, one of Stephen's friends, and his parents have a studio in a little hole-in-the-wall office building downtown. The Thomases have a small house, but they love to play music. So they rent a room with a couple of drumsets, a keyboard, guitar, etc., and go down there to "jam". Daniel had invited Stephen along for this particular session. I dropped Stephen off, then drove out to the Fishers' house.

When I arrived at the Fishers' house, who should greet me in the driveway but another version of the Three Stooges: Ben, Greg, and Philip, working on shelves for the guest room closet. Greg was squatting in the shade of the house, spinning the blade of an idle saw with one finger. Ben and Philip were in the midst of completing a shelf, carrying it from the sawhorses to a neat pyramid they'd made on the ground. Greg had a pencil wedged between his ear and his baseball cap. As I stopped to watch, Mr. Fisher emerged from the house, wearing a back brace, and carrying himself as a man in charge. He consulted Philip about the shelves while I stepped inside.

Dani opened the door to me. The house was quiet and neat inside. Christa, as soon as she saw me, scampered off and hid in her father's study. Anna was hard at work on the computer in the den. She gave me a hug and went to find Christa. "Christa! Come out of there and get your therapy tub!" she commanded. Christa whispered loudly, "Ssh! I want to surprise E--!" "Ok," Anna replied in a reciprocally loud whisper. I sauntered into the office with assumed oblivion, and shrieked gratifyingly when Christa charged out of her hiding spot and seized me round the knees. "I tricked you!" she giggled evilly. "No, I tricked you," I retorted. "What?!" she said. Anna laughed, "She knew you were hiding." Christa wrinkled her nose at me, and we laughed at each other.

We did therapy in the living room, where Dani was folding clothes on the sofa. Ruth had ensconced herself in the office, reading, and Anna had returned to the computer. Elizabeth was nowhere to be found.

Partway through "visual circle math", Mrs. Fisher hurried through. "E--! Can you move your car when it's convenient?" "We have two minutes and twenty-one seconds left," I called back, anxious lest Christa get it into her head to become distracted. When the exercise was done, I grabbed my keys. Christa begged to come along, so the two of us skipped outside, barefoot. I scanned the ground warily for chips of glass, splinters, and bent screws, and managed to steer Christa through the debris. She scrambled into the front seat of my car, and I slid in on the other side. "Can I wear your sunglasses?" she chirped. "Sure," I said as I turned on the engine. "Do I buckle up?" she asked. "Nope," I said. I rolled down the windows, and she yelled to the boys cheerfully as we backed cautiously down the driveway. Christa had to press my sunglasses to her face on top of her own glasses. She buckled on her seatbelt and tucked her feet under her so that she knelt in the seat, sticking her head out the window. She looked like a bug-eyed alien, the oversized sunglasses dwarfing her pert face.

We drove down to the end of the road and turned around. Christa screamed, "Wheee!" as we coasted down the hill. "Don't hit that house!" she cautioned as I turned a tight circle at the end of the lane. We drove back to the Fishers' house, and I parked in the grass by the ditch. Christa and I scrambled out of the car. As we pranced up the yard, Christa shouted proudly to the boys, "We went for a ride! Did you see us?" "Yes," said Philip patiently as he measured a board. They'd moved the sawhorses off the driveway and into the shade of the maple grove. The green grass was littered with pale yellow boards, patterned like sharks' skin by the dappling shadows.

Back inside, Christa and I worked some more on therapy. During the exercises that didn't require counting, I told Christa a long and absurd tale about "the baaad little aliens", Winnie-the-Pooh, and her birthday party. When it came time to do the reading exercises from the primer, I sat cross-legged on the living room floor, and Christa clambered into my lap. Calvin, bored, leaned his elbow on my leg and read over my shoulder as we worked through the simple story about salmon.

The last part of therapy requires two people in exercises that manipulate Christa's body in synchronized movements. Anna agreed to help out since Mrs. Fisher was still away, running errands. Christa sprawled out on the living room floor. While Anna and I flipped her arms and legs back and forth, she giggled and stuck out her tongue at me. She tried to make her hands whack my necklace, which dangled low over her face. Anna and I were both laughing so hard that we could hardly breathe. We counted the movements out loud until loud screeching from the kitchen cut us off: The boys had moved operations indoors, and, under Mr. Fisher's watchful eye, were ripping out the kitchen cabinetry, complete with oven and stove. The screech of the saw was deafening as it sliced through the sturdy wood and formica. By the time therapy was over, the place where the oven had been was a smoke-stained hole, and the counter was nowhere to be found. "We need the rusty wagon, we're going to haul the oven out of here!" Ben told us.

When therapy was over, Anna and I "tickled Christa to death". Christa wiggled and wheezed and giggled on the floor while we tickled her. "Ok, you're dead now. Be a corpse!" Anna told Christa. She scooped Christa up, and I followed them outside. We laid Christa in the biggest wagon with a blue sheet for a shroud and a couple of baseball mitts for pillows. Anna and I belted out "Poor Christa's dead, poor Christa V. is dead... Her fingernails have never been so clean....", slaughtering the song from "Oklahoma!" with great gusto. I picked up the handle of the wagon, and we formed a funeral procession. Christa lay in the bottom of the wagon while it trundled over the rough lawn and down the hill to the gully. "We don't have any flowers, so I'll go get some weeds," Anna volunteered, and ran to pick some purple-plumed grass from the ditch.

Once down in the gully, Anna twisted the grass into a bouquet. "Shut your eyes, lie down, and stop laughing," Anna commanded our corpse. "Am I really dead?" the corpse inquired skeptically. "No," we reassured her. Anna scattered cottonwood leaves and lawn clippings all over the corpse, then picked her up and deposited her in the hole the boys had dug for fun in the gully. "Cross your hands like this," Anna said, folding the corpse's hands mummy-style and placing the grass in between them. "Keep your eyes shut!" She covered the corpse with the blue sheet, and then, "She always said, 'Bury me with my baseball mitts!'," tossed the baseball mitts on top of the shrouded figure in the bottom of the hole. The corpse could hardly keep from laughing at this juncture--and the dirge was rather ruined since I found it impossible to keep from giggling.

The corpse rapidly decided that it wanted to be un-dead. "Augh! It's a ghost!" I shrieked as Christa bounced up out of the hole. But Christa didn't want to be a ghost, so Anna donned the shroud. "Look out, it's after us!" I shouted to Christa. Christa seized my hand, and we ran pell-mell up the gully slope. I could hardly run, I was laughing so hard, and gasping for breath. The ghost, shrouded in blue, raced after us. The bone-chilling chase scene was cut short, however, when a neighborhood dog decided to invade our Gothic tableaux. I nearly jumped out of my skin when the large, shaggy beast suddenly appeared at my feet, flopped invitingly on its back. "Oh, that dumb dog. He always lies in front of you, waiting to be scratched," the ghost growled disgustedly. Christa tried to shoo the dog away, but we eventually decided to ignore it.

The ghost, having caught up with us, wrapped Christa in its chilly arms. Christa, not to be outdone, promptly wielded her greatest survival tactic. "Yeow! You can't bite ghosts! That's not fair!" the ghost howled as Christa's sharp teeth chomped into her arm. It produced the desired effect, however: Christa freed herself from the ghost's grasp, and the two of us finished our sprint up the yard, the ghost trailing behind.

Back inside, I collected my things. Christa wanted to build a sheet tent, but I explained that I had to pick Stephen up from Daniel's house. Elizabeth emerged from the back bedroom, where she'd been napping, long enough to say good-bye.

I drove across town to the Thomases' house, where they'd gone after spending awhile at the studio. Stephen came out, and we drove home.

At home, I found my parents busy fixing supper. When I came in, Laura and Stephen were hanging around in the dining room. "You don't want to go in there," my father warned them ominously as they edged toward the study. I was just slipping off my sandals in the living room when I heard Laura and Stephen gasp behind me. Turning around, I saw a strange apparition advancing toward us: A muscular figure, masked with a strip of yellow cloth round its eyes, and wearing a black shirt with a zig-zag lightning bolt running down the chest. "It's Captain Thunderbolt!" I exclaimed, recognizing the well-known defender of humanity. Laura and Stephen burst out laughing most disrespectfully at the appearance of this renowned character.

However, Captain Thunderbolt only made a brief appearance. I guess he decided the situation wasn't dire enough to require intervention.

A few moments later, oddly enough, Logan stepped into the living room. (Where he came from, I'll never know!) He, Laura, Stephen, and I stood around and talked until suppertime. Philip returned from the Fishers' house in time for supper. During supper, we mostly retold stories about pranks that Caltech students had pulled.

After supper, we watched a "Three Stooges" episode and a "Looney Tunes" episode. Apparently, my mother suggested that we have a change from the "Three Stooges", and joked about "Looney Tunes"--so my father promptly went out and bought a thick stack of "Looney Tunes" DVDs. When the short films were over, Logan showed us pictures of California on his laptop. Stunning pictures of mountains, Yosemite, etc. A hard, magnificent country.

As my father settled down to read aloud, Logan ran outside and returned with a sudoku board. The board is divided into nine blocks of nine squares each. Wooden tiles with numbers painted on them go on the board: the object is to get each row across, each row up and down, and each self-contained block to have the numbers one through nine in it. While my father read a P.G. Wodehouse story, Logan, Philip, Laura, Stephen, and I worked a couple of puzzles on the board. Actually, we only completed one puzzle, but we got pretty far through the second one. I enjoyed it a lot--a game of thought, fitting the pieces together, a little like a crossword puzzle or Scrabble, but with numbers instead.

After the story ended, my father read from Matthew for devotions, one of the portions about the Sabbath day: necessity (the disciples eating the grain as they walked through the field) and mercy (Christ healing the man with the lame hand). We sang and prayed.

When Logan left, it was baths for all of us kids. I collected my laundry from downstairs. While Laura showered, I sat and started this entry in my room. Through my open door, I could hear Philip typing e-mails to his friends on the schoolroom computer. The eerie, bittersweet strains of "The Village" soundtrack seeped from the computer, merging with the sounds of crickets coming through my windows.

thanksgiving

Now Playing: "A Day Without Rain" by Enya. Track 2, "Wild Child".

Thanks to my parents for a delightful concert last night--my dad bought a ticket for me so I could sneak along with them, even though it was their anniversary outing.

Thanks to my friends here at Tulsa. This has been a great week for spending time with you all!

Thanks to my friends at home, most of whom have sent me e-mails this week. I'm so happy: I have e-mails from almost all the people I love in Stillwater in my box right now, waiting to be responded to. :o)

Thanks most of all to my High King for a week of sunshine, with only a few showers, and good fellowship granted with Him and His people. For rose gardens, monarch butterflies, blueberry green tea, Mark O'Connor, and a crazy Catholic guy in Rachel's Western Political Thought class.

poetics is going to eat my lunch

Now Playing: "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" soundtrack by Howard Shore. Track 1, "The Prophecy".

About yesterday, September 27, 2006. (I got back so late last night that I didn't have time to write up the journal entry, which is why I'm doing it now.)

This morning Rachel and I went running. It's the first time I've run in a week, but I found it pleasant, actually. We ran around the track inside the fitness center. There were only a few people using the workout machines, and no one else on the track. Amanda and Rachael came in toward the end of our twenty-minute stay, and we waved to them.

I had to race to shower, do my devotions, eat breakfast (a few crackers), and practice my flute in time to be ready for Music Theory at nine o'clock. Today in Music Theory: more chords.

In Honors today we watched Act 1 of an old movie production of "Macbeth", with Ian McKellen (a very young Ian McKellen, with black hair) as Macbeth and Judy Dench (again, a very young Judy Dench) as Lady Macbeth. It was a very minimalist production, without any sets or backdrop, and only costume, lighting, and sound effects to give a sense of scene. It was rather weird to see Ian McKellen so young. The production as a whole was unnerving--fittingly so, of course, since "Macbeth" is an unnerving, eerie play.

After Honors, I had my flute lesson.

For half-an-hour after flute, I worked on Music Theory homework. Then I walked over to the cafeteria to pick up lunch in a box. Tara and I eventually found each other, and we decided to drive to the park and eat lunch there.

Noon lay warm and brilliant on the lawn as we stepped out of the car. We sat down on a rough bench under an oak tree. Spread before us lay the rose garden, and as the wind skimmed the hundreds of bright bushes, a faint, sweet smell, like a half-remembered dream, blew toward us--citrus and tea, pine and wet earth. We ate our sandwiches out of white styrofoam boxes and talked about this and that. Nothing earth-shattering, nothing serious, simple-minded and happy. A fat squirrel nibbled a dried cherry that Tara tossed to him, and rooted with his nose in the grass. A mockingbird watched us from a low-hanging branch of the oak tree. Couples strolled through the garden, sometimes with a small baby or toddler in tow. Sometimes single men or women in business suits, obviously taking a break from the office. After we finished eating our sandwiches, I opened one of the packages of fancy cookies that my mother sent me a couple of weeks ago. Milano cookies, crumbly pastry sandwiching creamy chocolate. We munched them contentedly.

When we finished lunch, we threw away our boxes and strolled down into the garden. Late noon sunshine lay hot on the gravel paths, on the sparkling fountains that shot up jets as perfect as dancer's arms under the hard sunshine. We admired the roses, laughed at their names, stopped to smell or feel the texture of the petals. Deep red Mr. Lincoln roses shot three feet above our heads on long, thick stems; brown-red Oklahoma roses hid a strangely sweet smell in their furled petals; Roman Holidays rioted scarlet; Summer Sunshines flickered like the bright bits of sunshine on dark foliage. We laughed at Impatient roses, and exclaimed over the Wild Blue Yonders, which really were blue. We found peach-pale Regatta roses, and I took a picture of them for Jenny S. (who used to be on the rowing team). There was one sort of rose that I was particularly attracted to. I don't remember the name, but it was Latino-sounding--Rio Grande, maybe. They were many-colored roses--gold, pink, magenta, orange blending together on ruffled petals.

We walked down long, cool avenues beside hedges of rose bushes, and out again beside one of the fountains. The lion-headed fountain trickled water into a lush bed of water plants, the last lilies of summer blooming on the dark pool. Little minnows fluttered just under the surface. High overhead, monarch butterflies whirled down the wind on their way south. Juniper trees, pruned straight up, stood like pillars around the largest fountain. We climbed up onto a terrace so that we could look down onto the rose garden, its perfect symmetry as elegantly lovely as a Platonic dialogue.

We explored up the terrace and found the teaching garden, a new area I hadn't seen before. It consisted mostly of simple plants (pansies, marigolds, herbs) and a variety of stonework. The stones used for the trellises and the walkway were named so that if you wanted, you could order them and build your own. At the end of the teaching garden stood a bronze statue of Linnaeus. He looked like a very cheerful chap, with a big smile on his plump face, holding a book in one hand and flowers in the other. Tara fell in love with his exuberance and took a very silly picture of me standing next to him.

Our time was almost out, but we strolled down the hill to the creek (where Syneva and I have walked). I stared up at the gigantic oak trees. Their hugeness never fails to fascinate me: graceful columns that leap up in one strong movement until they explode outward in a tapestry of rayed branches. We skipped from stone to stone along the narrow streambed, watching the water trickle over little waterfalls into a shallow pool down at the foot of the hill.

As we drove back to campus, Tara told me about the other students in her Greek class. It sounds as though the class should be called "geek" class because of all the rather strange, funny people. She laughed that she thinks she'll take it next semester just for the sake of the humorous characters in the class--including the professor, who's rather flamboyant in her teaching style.

Back on campus, I walked Tara to her apartment. She invited me to come over for supper, but I had to decline because I have to eat early suppers on Wednesdays (thanks to P&P!). In my room, I read the first two books of Augustine's On Christian Teaching for class next Monday. Having nothing better to do, I then took myself to the sycamore tree on the lawn outside Lottie to sit and read and daydream for awhile. Actually, I did the best thing I could have done, and read my Bible and Schaff's History, and worked on revising a poem for P&P (one of my favorite poems, so far, written in response to Beethoven's 7th symphony, second movement). Rachel strolled up after her class ended, and she sat beside me and read. Afternoon sunshine lay long and sleepy on the short grass. Sycamore leaves whirled down over our heads to lie caught in the lawn. A strong wind blew through the trees and rustled the pages of my books.

After supper, I walked over to Oliphant for P&P. Class tonight was much more animated than it has been for quite some time. Fireworks:

We were talking about one of the statements of poetics. One of the girls asked whether these poets would write if they didn't have an audience. Crystal (I think) answered that she thought that these poets put out their poetry so that readers can help them figure out what their own poetry means. They need an audience. The professors jumped on this. In this particular statement of poetics (by Charles Bernstein), the author writes that readers become poets when they read because they make meaning from the poem. Dr. J explained that this is "Because these poems are all written for other poets. It's a tight-knit community of poets who feed off one another, are friends with each other, and discuss each other's work. They write for one another, for their specific readership of poet-friends." Then Dr. G pulled up Dana Gioia's essay "Can Poetry Matter?". "This is exactly the thing Gioia is worried about. He doesn't like this tight-knit community of poetry. He wants poetry to be open to everyone--but he also wants there to be a highbrow class of critics to tell us what good poetry is." The class sniggered. "Gioia is living a dream. There never was a time when everyone read poetry. That's a myth. For the past five hundred years, poetry has always had a small readership."

I must admit that this angered me a good deal. It's the common blind spot of professors, it seems to me. They overlook anything that's before those "five hundred years". "What about 'Beowulf'?" I wanted to ask. "What about the 'Iliad'? What about the 'Odyssey'? Most importantly, what about the Bible? That has poetry in it, and its poetry (the Psalms, for crying out loud!) is the part that everyone turns to as their favorite!"

Then things got really "interesting". "Ok, I can't resist getting up on my soapbox," Dr. J said. He stood up and started to pace, gesticulating fiercely with his hands. "Does anyone in this class like Gioia?" he asked. No one said anything. I leaned forward and narrowed my eyes, attempting to keep myself from saying anything foolish. Dr. J launched into a long diatribe. "He's playing into this system of logic. Humans are limited to logic by the Enlightenment. Language and poetic meaning are part of being human. Art, il-logic, is part of being human. Without art, we can't survive. Art isn't a luxury. If it were, it wouldn't exist. It's necessary to our humanity. It's the fault of capitalism that rich, fat Americans don't make art. In all other societies, they make art, but capitalism has made Americans lazy. For you guys, your training is your impediment to reading this stuff. You've been made too referential. You have to learn new habits, new ways of reading and making meaning to understand this art."

[N.B.: All of that except for the first sentence was taken directly from my notes, scribbled down at the time of the "lecture".]

By the time this ended, you can imagine my state of mind.

The professors released class a little bit early since we had taken no break. They applauded the good discussion. ("Except I want to hear less of us, and more of you," Dr. G said--which I agreed with in more ways than one!)

Crystal and I walked over to John Mabee in deep discussion about how dreadful the class period had been, explaining to each other why the professors are wrong, etc. She went into John Mabee, and I followed, somewhat reluctantly.

We found a cluster of RUF guys sitting in the hall outside Kevin's room (which is the second one down the hall to the left, quite close to the entry area). David, Asher, James, Spencer, and Kevin were all sitting or standing, lounging about, talking. They greeted us boisterously as we entered. Kevin was sitting on the floor, looking rather pale, his eyes bloodshot and shadowed without his glasses. While Crystal told Kevin and David all about how awful poetry class had been, Asher tried to persuade me to play basketball in the gym with them. I declined.

A couple of other guys joined us, Andrew P. and one of his buddies. Andrew P. is in Poetry but skipped tonight. His friend, an engineer, caught onto one fallacy in this new vein of poetry (a fallacy which Logan pointed out in his comments on my poetics): "If engineers were to be like these poets and decide to design buildings and electronics so that only they could use them, so that you were never sure what 'meaning' to get out of them, then no one would be able to live in buildings or use toasters anymore!"

Eventually, Kevin invited Crystal, Andrew, and me into his room to "hang out" for awhile. Crystal fixed herself a plate of spaghetti and slurped it down while Kevin munched some cold pizza. He brewed tea for us. Kevin likes to mix things, so he steeped chai, green, and chamomile tea together in the hot water. Crystal sniffed hers and announced, "It's flower juice!" And that's what it reminded me of, too. He put sugar in ours, so what we had was sweet and spicy and strange--like cinnamon, lemon, sugar, and something bitter blended together, the way I would imagine pollen would taste.

We basically just sat around and talked--talked about poetry, some. Kevin wondered aloud whether, in the scene towards the end of Paradise Lost where one of the angels shows Adam the consequences of the fall, this post-postmodern poetry was one of the consequences that Adam saw and agonized over. That made all of us laugh, somewhat bitterly (at least in my case).

Mostly they talked about other random odds and ends of college life, the weird hobbies that form the undertone of most students' existence. Kevin played Bjork (Norse pop music) on his ipod hooked up to his stereo system. I examined the books on his shelf: Milton, Dante, Plato, Yeats, Frost, "Go" handbooks (a board game similar to chess), and a textbook for "teaching yourself Icelandic". Crystal inspected the cafeteria menu for tomorrow. "Haha, they have despair for lunch!" she laughed and pointed to chicken florentine--apparently Kevin once said that it tasted like despair (fried chicken with spinach and cheese on top *ick*).

I mostly sat against one of the dressers and watched and listened and laughed. Behind me, Kevin's cello leaned comfortably against the corner. Kevin pulled up funny websites on his laptop: a site of comic strip, a site called "Kitten Wars" where people vote on which kitten picture they think is cutest. It was hilarious to listen to Kevin, Andrew, and Crystal ooh and ahh over the wide-eyed kitten pictures. I stood on the fringe, sipping my tea.

I finished my tea slowly, and said, "Well, it's Cinderella's bedtime. Ten-thirty. Thanks, Kevin." He and Crystal decided to walk back with me. Andrew had left a short time before, after he'd finished reading over my notes from class, and groaning over them.

We set out across the lawn. The night was dark, with a few clouds racing over the stars on a cold north wind. As we stepped down over the sloping grass, I spun myself in dizzy circles, my arms flying out, my knapsack pulling my body in two different directions, my keys jingling in my hand. "Yay! E-- is happy!" Crystal giggled. "I wanted to do that the whole time while we were sitting in class," I confessed. A searchlight wandered over the sky above us as we walked up the slope to Lottie. I said good-bye to Crystal and Kevin and walked up to the room.

I found a note on the door from Rachel, saying that she was in the basement doing laundry and reading. Deciding not to disturb her, I changed clothes and went to bed. She came in awhile later, and then the room was quiet.

a change in the weather

Now Playing: "String Quartet" by Mark O'Connor.

Today was a blustery day, weather changing. Rachel went running this morning, but after the first couple days this week of running in the chilly morning, I haven't been feeling well again, so I opted not to go. I dressed, did my devotions, wrote e-mails, etc. At eight o'clock, Rachel and I went down to Nicole and Mary's room for prayer. Mary had to rush off for a physics quiz, so it was just Nicole, Rachel, and I. We prayed and read a portion of Psalm 119. After we'd read and discussed that section, I suggested that we sing it since it included Psalm 119M. Nicole didn't know what a Psalter was, so I pulled mine out and showed it to her. We sang Psalm 119M, and talked a little about Psalmody.

More e-mails after prayer time. Then I went to practice my flute. By the time I stepped outside, a thin rain was falling, tiny drops stinging on the strong south wind. I practiced for an hour, then hurried over to MAW. During class, we discussed writing techniques and the end of The Bondwoman's Narrative. Rain fell more heavily, spotting the south-facing windows with eyes of water.

After class, Rachel went off to meet with her mentee, a freshman girl she's supposed to be advising. I went to the cafeteria alone. To my delight, they had "real" tamales and chili for lunch today in the cafeteria--actual cornhusks on the tamales! Yay! But the tamales did have weird bits of peppers in them instead of just plain masa.

Anyhow, while I was eating, Kevin came and sat with me, and we spent forty-five minutes talking pleasantly. In a couple of weeks, Philip is going to come to campus to visit as a prospective student. Kevin has agreed to let Philip spend the night in his dorm room--in fact, Kevin was quite delighted with the prospect. We talked about music since the two of us have similar tastes. We're both huge fans of Mark O'Connor, Yo-Yo Ma, and that whole rogues' gallery of bluegrass/Classical people, though Kevin says he doesn't know anyone who listens to soundtracks as much as I do. We also talked about plans for the summer and the years ahead.

After lunch, I ran back to Lottie through the rain. As I scurried down the sidewalk, the sun glanced briefly through the clouds, turning the rain into shining glass. I spent an hour working on my Honors paper about a scene from "Othello", then walked over to the apartment to meet Syneva. At the apartment, I only found Rachael home. We sat and talked, a bit stiffly, until Syneva arrived, lugging her cello on her back and twirling her umbrella overhead. Rachael retreated to her room. "How would you like to make banana bread?" Syneva asked, "Today just seems like a banana-bread sort of day." I was quite happy with the idea.

So the two of us busied ourselves in the kitchen for half-an-hour. While Syneva peeled the skin off the frozen bananas, I mixed flour, salt, and baking soda in one bowl, and brown sugar and butter in another bowl. I was supposed to "cream" the butter, but the blender just splattered little chunks of butter and brown sugar all over the place. As we worked, we caught up on each other's week. Syneva described the bluegrass festival in Woodward that she and her family went to last weekend. Apparently, bluegrass is associated with hippies and hillbillies: Syneva told me ridiculous stories about bluegrass artists who sing Universalist songs about how good life is, appropriating the Bible to their whacked theology, and about the crowds at the concerts who sport peace symbols on their socks and wave their hands like Pentecostals during the music. She told me about one young band, composed of a mandolinist, a guitarist, and a fiddler, that had a Nickel Creek sound. She and her family bought one of their CDs.

After the batter was mixed, Syneva poured most of it into a large loaf pan, but she scooped a bit of it into a tiny loaf pan--a pan just large enough to be the right size for an American Girl doll toy. I washed the dishes, and Syneva put them away. While the bread baked, we sat on the saggy sofa and talked. A cool breeze blew through the half-open windows. Syneva asked about poetry class and about study abroad plans. On both counts she suggested Matt and Amanda as people to go to for counsel.

Slowly, the delicious, brown-buttery smell of the bread started to seep from the oven. Syneva took out my little loaf first and poked it gingerly to see if it was done. She let it cool for awhile before she wrapped it in foil.

When the bread was ready, I pulled myself together. We said good-bye, with mutual wishes for a good afternoon. I walked back to Lottie.

I spent the afternoon studying. At six o'clock, I walked to the cafeteria for supper to meet Tara and Rachel. To my surprise, Jenny S., Kathryn, and Nicole showed up, too. While they were waiting in line for food, I found a table and sat down. As I sat there alone, a husky chap with bristly sideburns and a square, brown face came up and asked, "May I sit here?" "Sure," I said, somewhat doubtfully. We recognized each other since both of us go to RUF. He turned out to be Bob (oh, dear, girls, I can't hear or say that name without thinking of our DLF :o), Kevin's roommate, a freshman mechanical engineering major.

We spent the meal with a cheerful, disjointed conversation that bounced back and forth from Jenny complaining about how disgusting the caf hamburgers are, to Tara talking about singing in Jazz class, to Rachel describing the "cruel and unusual" amount of economics homework she has, to Bob politely answering a question about his hometown, to Nicole and Kathryn telling us about their days' work. Eventually, people went off about their own business, leaving Rachel, Nicole, and me sitting together. Nicole made dessert for herself (cake topped with hot fudge), and the three of us argued humorously whether it would be appetizing to eat the fudge on its own, or whether it required "substance" to go with it. As we walked back to Lottie together, all three of us paused to watch the glorious panoply of the sky. To the north, a huge white tower of cloud, like the spire of Minas Tirith, flashed white against the blue sky. To the southwest, a bank of low, fast-moving dark clouds was blowing in, casting shadows across the sun. Dust hanging in the air rippled ochre, saffron, and sandstone-pink over the western horizon. Nicole exclaimed, "It reminds me of 'The Ten Commandments'!", and then had to explain this movie reference to us two un-movie-literates.

Rachel and I spent the whole evening studying, a grand total of three-and-a-half hours. At first, it was somewhat difficult to focus. The scene through the western windows was to gorgeous, powerful, and swiftly-changing, much more interesting than my dull music theory exam tomorrow, or the paper we have to write for MAW about Herman Melville. Low clouds raced across the sun, rippling like the shadows of a shoal of manta rays seen from deep underwater. Jenny, Tara, and the RUF flag football team was playing a game on the intramural field, too.

As the evening went on, the sun set quickly. Rain blew up, flashing under the streetlights, and lightning flickered briefly. Now the dry south wind blows straight down the street, hissing against the corners of the windows. I worked on music theory, Honors, and my paper for MAW. Rachel brewed tea for the two of us--a richly fruity green tea. My rosebush put out a faint, delicate smell from its constellation of flowers where it stood valiantly on the broad windowsill, and the basil and sage my mother put in the bouquet last Sabbath reminded me of the garden in the afternoon at home.

I washed my rosebush with soap and water to get rid of the spider mites that have been plaguing it. Rachel went out to print things at the library and to call her family. I've been sitting and typing here for too long now. It's high time for bed.

yet more pictures

Pictures from the Fair (request of Sarah) are up.

You know the drill:

www.photobucket.com

Username:Elfellyn
Password: psalm84

File named "County Fair".

Have fun....

Bonfire!

Now Playing: "Requiem" by Brahms. Track 7, "Selig Sien Die Toten" ("Blessed are they that die in the Lord from henceforth....").

This morning Rachel and I went to the RUF prayer meeting. Nicole was still in her pajamas when I arrived (Rachel came a bit later because she had to shower after running), but Mary was dressed and ready for her eight-thirty physics quiz. Mary, Nicole, Jenny H., Rachel, and I were the only ones who came this morning. Mary and Jenny had to leave early because they're both in the same physics class. We shared prayer requests and prayed. After Mary and Jenny left, Nicole, Rachel, and I read the first twenty-four verses of Psalm 119 and discussed them. We talked about how the fact that we are accounted righteous in Christ should spur us on to be righteous in our lives.

After prayer time, I frantically wrote e-mails and dashed off to practice my flute. As it turned out, I forgot one of my books for MAW, so I had to curtail my flute practice in order to race back to my dorm and grab my book. In MAW today, we discussed The Bondwoman's Narrative, a slave story written in the 1800s.

After MAW, Rachel and I ate lunch together. Back in our room, I sliced up a peach to share with her. I spent the hour after lunch reading more of The Bondwoman's Narrative. At two o'clock, I walked over to Syneva's apartment to meet with her. We drove to the park again to spend our hour together.

At the park, we climbed out of the car. In front of us, the rose gardens lay on their gentle slope, flowers glinting, bright flecks of color against green and blue, the fountains spraying their symmetrical plumes into the air, the yew trees standing serenely along the terraces--like a scene in a Roman fresco. Turning around, we strolled down the hill toward the creek. For awhile we walked along the paths on the hillside between tall thickets of azaleas. Their waxy, dark green leaves rippled glossily as the sun glanced off them. Pine needles and acorns crunched under our feet. Our sandals sank in soft mud where the paths had been watered thoroughly. We finally sat down on a stone bench at a curve in the path. The high bench was cold and rough under our bodies as we kicked off our sandals and swung our bare feet free. The hill dropped below us in narrow terraces to a string of small ponds. Cattails, waterweed, sedge, and equisetum grew in the shallow water. Crickets and frogs rasped and fluted among the round leaves of the waterweed. Watching the blue face of the water, I could see birds and airplanes reflected from the unseen sky overhead. Enormous oak trees towered over us: Like huge fountains frozen in mid-air, their giant pinions spreading across the sky, trunks shooting up and pluming out into a broad network of branches and leaves. When the wind took them, they roared like falling water. Nearby, we could hear the unseen stream running from stone to stone to the pools below.

Syneva and I sat and talked for a long time. After our hour, Syneva dropped me off at Lottie. I walked over to the Student Health Services Center. At OSU, this place is called "Voodoo Village". Here, perhaps, it goes by the slightly more healthful name of "Snake-Oil Central". At least, that's the feeling I always get whenever I am forced, by some contingency of my body, to set foot inside the place. For one thing, the door isn't normal--it's more like the huge, heavy doors they use to seal submarines. Once you're inside, there aren't any windows. The walls and floor are drab yellow, and the waiting area consists of two rows of suspicious-looking chairs, a TV, and some rather unpleasant magazines. However, the people in the Health Center are usually quite kind. The receptionist did hand me a whole regiment of forms to fill out since I haven't had to be "seen" by anyone here before. I stumbled through them, trying to piece together bits of family medical history, insurance information, and student ID numbers. Having completed that ordeal, I sat back to wait. I read and tried not to become sidetracked by the TV, which was tuned to a rather ditzy home makeover show.

The nurse finally emerged from a back hallway. She led me down to the most distant examining room. I perched on the examination counter. The Health Center doesn't have a full-time doctor, and the doctor was too busy to see me today, so I'd opted for the nurse instead. This particular nurse was an older woman, wearing a white lab coat, with short hair and a kind, business-like manner. She questioned me gently as to the nature of my malady (a suspicious pain in my ear), and inspected my ears and chest for signs of infection. Unfortunately, she couldn't see anything in either ear, so she arranged for an appointment with the doctor tomorrow and sent me packing.

I trudged back to my room and spent the afternoon working on an article for the RPM magazine, finishing "Othello", and finishing Tuesday's section of The Bondwoman's Narrative. Rachel and I walked over to the cafeteria for lunch at six o'clock. We met Tara there. The three of us sat together at one of the round tables. We chatted about our classes. Rachel and Tara discussed debate, which they'd both done in highschool. In the midst of our light conversation, four boys suddenly descended on our table. Daniel and Austin led the way, but I didn't know two of the boys. They introduced themselves as Paul and David. The three of us were a bit taken aback, but we did our best to engage the boys in conversation. The boys were all being cordial and polite, so the end of the meal was pleasant.

For an hour until the homecoming festivities started, I worked on P&P homework (yes, the professors actually got all of it posted today). Rachel had to go to an APO (community service group) meeting. When she returned, we walked down to the lawn for the homecoming celebration.

A stage had been set up under the oak trees with a large video screen behind it so that whatever happened onstage could be played on the video screen and people in the crowd could see what was happening. Rachel and I stood on the edge of the crowd for awhile. We ran into Amy, and chatted with her some. The sunset was gorgeous: the sky like a slanting blue canvas swirled and sprayed with looped rows of indigo, red, and gilt. We watched the sunset fade from marigold to apricot to burnt umber. Jenny S., Tara, and Alisha came pushing through the crowd toward us. While people made speeches on the stage, we talked and laughed. A helicopter circled low over campus. We watched a firetruck back up the long brick sidewalk from the street until it was parallel with the bonfire ring. The bonfire ring sits high up the lawn, near the library. Normally, the wide circle is a flowerbed, full of lantana, zinnia, and marigold. But a few days ago all the flowers were pulled out. This morning, a pyramid of packing boxes, lopped tree limbs, and old boards appeared in the circle instead.

It grew dark rapidly. The marching band struck up while the cheerleaders tossed their little pom-poms in the air. Suddenly, to everyone's surprise and delight, fireworks exploded from the intramural field just across the street. They burst right overhead, raining down toward our startled uplifted faces. I gasped with delight as colors stained the sky. Simple Roman candles, shooting into concentric rings of color--blue, green, crimson, indigo, gold, cream. They bloomed so close that the sky seemed to be raining fire on us. For the grand finale, fountains of white and gold rockets shot off, while overhead gold, blue, and crimson Roman candles exploded against the embers of the sunset. Everyone clapped and cheered when the fireworks ended. Smoke hung over the intramural field, pink in the gloaming.

The fireworks done, everyone turned immediately to the bonfire ring. People pressed down the gentle slope toward the ring. Rachel and I moved closer, but we didn't go past the sidewalk, so we were still a good distance away. The shallow bowl around the ring was full of people pressing together, as close as they dared get to the bonfire ring. We watched as a man clambered to the top of the pile and doused it with some sort of liquid--I thought it smelled like gasoline, and it looked faintly coppery as it chugged from the container. He scrambled down a ladder. Then someone near the bonfire ring waved an unlit brand. Next moment, a red glow shone on the bodies of the people closest to the fire. The glow brightened and deepend, and then Rachel and I could see the flame running liquidly up the side of the pyre. The fire sprinted upward, flames curling eagerly until they reached the top, and then they shot high into the sky, like the tail of a giant phoenix. An enormous plume of flame erupted from the top of the pyre, smoke billowing out over the crowd. Sparks blazed, whirled, caught up in the smoke, the air full of orange sparks as though someone were shredding bright marigolds on the cool night wind. The top of the fire blew northwestwards, shifting west as the breeze shifted.

As the fire grew hotter, people pressed away from it. They streamed past Rachel and me, back up toward the booths along the sidewalk near the stage where restaurants from the Tulsa area had come to share free samples with the crowd. The tang of burning wood hung on the air, and ash peppered the grass in the lea of the fire. Rachel and I lingered for awhile, watching the fire.

I started to look around for the other girls. Kathryn, Rachel, and I moved up toward the vending booths, but they were too crowded. We met Jenny S., Tara, and Alisha in that area, as well as Mary. Mary and one of Tara's friends pushed through the crowd and brought back cups of frozen custard for us. We stood clumped together under the trees, crowding near one another to keep our little bubble of conversation distinct from the mass of people around us.

Since we didn't have any spoons, we resorted to peeling away the styrofoam cups and nibbling the custard around the edge. "This is the first time I've ever eaten ice cream this way," I laughed as Tara, Rachel, and I sprinkled bits of styrofoam into a convenient trashcan. The custard was dense and firm (not at all like ice cream or frozen yogurt)--almost the consistency of an apple, if you can imagine that with vanilla ice cream instead. It was quite delicious, actually.

After awhile, Rachel and I drifted down the slope and sat down near the bonfire. The fire had died down considerably but was still burning strong. I peeled bits of styrofoam into the grass and licked around the inner edge of the cup, enjoying the firm creaminess on the back of my throat. Rachel sat silently, just watching the fire. Knots of people were scattered around us on the grass--couples, groups of friends. Loud rap music pounded from speakers near the stage.

Rachel and I walked back to our room at about nine-fifteen. We've been working in near-silence for an hour. Rachel did brew tea for both of us. She shared her ginger-peach tea with me--spicy-sweet, with a tang of cinnamon in the cup.

I posted pictures online:

www.photobucket.com

Username: Elfellyn
Password: psalm84
Go to the folder that says "Dorm and Bonfire" or something like that.

Enjoy!

bugs

Now Playing: Beethoven's 7th Symphony, second movement.

Celebrate: This is my two-hundredth post! :o)

Early this morning, at three-thirty, I heard a high-pitched ringing sound. I woke up, bleary, half-expecting it to be my alarm clock. It took me a couple of moments to realize that it was the fire alarm. I grabbed my shoes and hoodie, and stood, still dazed, in the middle of the room. I realized that Rachel hadn’t waked, so I whispered, my voice harsh and desperate from sleep, “Rachel! Fire alarm!” She was awake immediately. Together we scrambled downstairs and out onto the lawn. A mass of girls was pouring out of the building, though we were at the tail-end of the crowd. Rachel and I walked onto the dank grass and stood under the stars. The hunched shapes of the other girls stood in front of us, silhouetted against the bright outdoor lights. Security vehicles pulled up, and after about fifteen minutes, we were admitted back into the building. Rachel and I scrambled wearily into bed.

This morning, as usual—woke, dressed, devotions, etc. Very tired after last night’s incident, but managed to keep myself awake. I started an e-mail, but didn’t have time to finish it before I hurried off to practice my flute. As I walked to Tyrell after two cups of peppermint tea, I breathed deeply, enjoying the sensation of being able to take in the cold morning air through my nose. The sun shone mistily through the trees, as though the air was full of tiny beads of gold threaded on silver wire. In MT this morning, we went over intervals and minor scales. In Shakespeare, we had our final discussion of “Hamlet”—a more fruitful discussion than before, including Horatio’s relation to Hamlet, and the question of Hamlet’s madness. After Shakespeare, I had my flute lesson. We spent most of the time working on trills and the first movement of Telemann’s Sonata in G Major. After flute, I ate lunch.

After lunch, I trudged back to my room. Rachel wasn't there. I spent most of the afternoon alone: At first, I tried to write an ekphrastic poem for P&P, using the second movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony. But it didn't work very well. So I switched to MT homework and ground out harmonic and minor scales for an hour, listening to Beethoven's 3rd and 4th symphonies. Theory was my only assignment for the day, other than the assignment for P&P.

I decided to lug all my books outside onto the lawn, hoping that perhaps the fresh air would stir up some new creativity. I packed my poetry anthologies, notebook, and my old Norton anthology from last fall semester. I suspected that part of the reason I was having such a hard time writing was because my mind was full of postmodern mush, disjointed phrases that mean nothing. For awhile, I sat outside on the damp ground under the sycamore tree. The afternoon was cool--I felt as though I were at the bottom of a green pool, bordered by the stone lip of the buildings, and bubbled overhead by the reflective sky. The east wind danced in the star-shaped sycamore leaves.

To get the postmodern nonsense out of my head, I flipped through the Norton, reading scraps of Beowulf, "The Dream of the Rood", Donne, Milton, Marvell, etc. Then I turned to the business of actually writing the poem. I had scraps I'd scribbled down earlier, and slowly they began to congeal into some sort of sense.

A tiny green spider started to weave a web through my bangs, and a grey stinkbug investigated my papers. Jenny H. pedaled past on her bicycle and waved. Crystal strolled up from a class. She joined me under the tree with her laptop. I ran up to my room and grabbed my laptop. We sat under the sycamore together, working on our ekphrastic poetry. Crystal was quite frustrated, actually. She played the song she'd chosen over and over--a "pop" song (I mean that in the context of popular, as opposed to Classical), cascading, Asian, reminding both of us of flowers falling from trees, and dusk. To my surprise, the bits of poetry I'd been fumbling with came together nicely in the end. Though they were still quite rough, I had no choice but to submit them without further revision--hopefully that will come later.

As Crystal and I were working under the tree, suddenly Crystal screamed and yanked her shirt as far away from her chest as possible. A fat, grey caterpillar had plopped down on her chest and was crawling up towards her face. Rude little blighter. I flicked him off with my ID card. Crystal laughed at herself. She picked up the caterpillar on a piece of mossy bark and inspected the creature, giggling as it fumbled in confusion when it crawled to the end of the bark.

After that incident, though, we decided we'd had enough of the outdoors for the afternoon. So we went up to the room Rachel and I share. Crystal used my computer for awhile to post her discussion comments on the P&P website. Meanwhile, I read some pages from Schaff's History of the Christian Church and worked on "Othello" for Honors on Friday.

Crystal went off to work on her ekphrastic poem, while Rachel and I ate supper together. I wasn't very hungry. After the meal, I walked over to Oliphant for P&P, though I was about twenty minutes early. While I was walking along, trying to make myself cheerful, I heard pounding footsteps on the brick path behind me. Glancing around, I saw David and Spencer racing toward me. Laughing, they sprinted up next to me. "You won, you won!" Spencer gasped. "Hi, guys," I chuckled. "Hi. How are you?" David asked, ever-courteous. "Fine, thanks. What are y'all doing?" Spencer explained that he's "training" to beat one of the girls at arm-wrestling. He's been doing three hundred one-arm push-ups in order to build stamina. The boys went off about their own business, with mutual wishes for a good evening.

For awhile, I sat under the pine tree outside Oliphant. I shut my eyes. The evening sun slanting between the buildings fell directly on me, hot, red, patterning my eyelids. The rough, round bark snagged my hair, and the faint, aromatic smell of the needles under my legs curled up around me.

Nearly everyone was late for P&P. Discussion did not get off to a good start. Most of the class hasn't been doing the reading, or so it would appear, and there were some awkward pauses, which I (and a couple of other people) attempted to fill with tentative answers. The professors drew out the discussion, skilled as Socrates, trying to get us to realize a particular side of the poets we've been reading. During the break, I went outside and stood on the grass, watching the colors leech from the sky.

We spent the last hour of class interpreting eight lines of poetry. The result was "a constellation of meaning", as Dr. G said--everyone came up with their own interpretations, all of which somehow connected, but none of which were exactly the same. This, of course, nicely proved the professors' point from earlier in the discussion: These poets (Coolidge, Andrews, Gerier, MacLow) see the poem not as reflecting a unified persona but as reflecting a fractured, individualistic portrait. Humans are no longer seen as entities in and of themselves but as bits and pieces of consciousness. The poets turn meaning over to the reader, to get the reader's different consciousnesses to construct as much meaning as possible. It's the reader's responsibility to make meaning, not the poet's, and that requires time and energy from the reader. I'm not sure what I think of all this....

Once we were outside after class, I swung myself in a circle. "Happy to be out of class?" Crystal chuckled. "I'm always happy to be out of class. Outside is so much better," I said. We walked over to Lottie together. On the way, we took a detour to visit Mordecai. Mordecai is a spider that lives in a corner of the little porch outside Lottie's front door. He weaves beautiful webs each evening, but during the day, he snoozes in a shed that he wove for himself of paint peelings, silk, and bark. It's ingeniously attached to one of the metal porch pillars, both by silk and by the fact that the sides of the shed are made of paint on the pillar itself. Crystal and I noticed tonight that Mordecai hadn't woven a new web, but was reusing an old web. We also noticed that there was a "sidewalk" of thick new thread, running from the shed to the center of the web--that way, Mordecai can get from his shed to his web without getting stuck in the slender, sticky spokes of the web. We admired his handiwork before we went inside.

Up in her room, Crystal showed me a simple game that she and the boys like to play, called Go. It's a cross between chess and checkers that involves strategy, both defensive and offensive. She has a computer program that she uses to play, and she explained it to me by playing out a short match.

I said good-night, and went upstairs to my room. Rachel was studying at her desk. She asked how class had gone, so I summarized briefly, then inquired after Bible study. "It went well. Now I just have to apply it," she said with a smile. "Just!" I exclaimed, and we both laughed.

Does it never end?

This morning I woke quite sleepy, but feeling a bit better. Rachel ran, but I stayed behind to dress and have my devotions. I'm still not up to running. When Rachel returned, we went to the girls' prayer time in Nicole and Mary's room. Mary had a paper plate of braided ginger-and-sugar cookies, which we dipped in our tea while we shared prayer requests. We read several short Psalms (93, 117, and 131, if I remember aright), chosen at whim, but we found surprising and edifying connections between them.

I practiced my flute, then sat on a bench until MAW, reading handouts from Augustine class--a letter from Dante about Paradisio.

In MAW, we discussed Walt Whitman's poetry. I liked the poetry better when Dr. A read it aloud. Whitman writes in an arrogant, self-aggrandizing style, Rachel and I agreed, but I like some of the images he uses. His language is unabashedly beautiful in places.

After class, we walked to lunch. The boys invited us to sit at their table today. David, Asher, Kevin, and some others were sitting around, talking and being silly. Russ came over from a different table and challenged David to eat six crackers in a minute. Apparently, this is actually difficult because the crackers make your mouth dry. Russ pulled out his cellphone and timed David. A bunch of people gathered around and watched--Rachel and I sat and laughed. "Remember what we were discussing the other day? About how excess is a male characteristic?" Rachel chuckled. David pulled it off, and the audience clapped.

I spent the afternoon in my room, working on the massive stack of reading that I've been assigned, and listening to all three "Lord of the Rings" soundtracks straight through. For MAW: the first quarter of The Bondwoman's Narrative, a slave story. For TURC: Book 4 of Paradise Lost. For flute: a section from Quantz's book On Playing the Flute about trills. For Augustine class: handouts with writings from various sources, from Dante to Aquinas. I finished this work at about four forty-five. As I wearily stacked my books and notebooks back on my shelf, I noticed that I had a new e-mail in my box. When I opened it, my heart sank: two poems assigned to be written for class tomorrow! Just when my work was done, it revived itself.

I gave myself the hour between my finished work and supper to write e-mails--all of them short, but at least they were e-mails.

At six o'clock I went to supper. Rachel was perched on the patio wall outside the cafeteria, reading in the sunshine, waiting for me. We ate supper together. As we walked into the cafeteria, we met Crystal, who was busy fixing a parfe for Matt Mk. in a Tulsa thermos. She listed the ingredients: strawberry yogurt, strawberry syrup, ice cream, chocolate cake, a chocolate chip cookie, cereal, etc. "I can't believe he's actually going to eat and enjoy this!" she laughed. Rachel and I sat together. She asked about the poetry assignments, and I described them. We talked about "Othello", especially Iago, whom I've come to realize as a sort of negative depiction of God--a force that is omniscient (he knows everything about the other characters, even acknowledging their goodness, but he rejects it) but who uses his knowledge not for the good of others but for their hurt.

After supper, Rachel and I went back to our room to study. I worked on one of the poems for P&P. One of the two poems is supposed to be based on the MacLow poetry we read last week. The computer program he used to "create" his poetry is online, so we're supposed to "create" our own "poem" using that program. I hunted around for awhile to find the right text to insert into the program so that it could spit back the random words, the "poetry" for me. I found a beautiful translation of "Beowulf" and tried that, but (perhaps thanks to the alliteration), it wasn't too successful. "Thane" was repeated at least half-a-dozen times. Here's a bit from that translation that seemed especially beautiful (speaking of a minstrel singing about Creation):

He sang who knew
tales of the early time of man,
how the Almighty made the earth,
fairest fields enfolded by water,
set, triumphant, sun and moon
for a light to lighten the land-dwellers,
and braided bright the breast of earth
with limbs and leaves, made life for all
of mortal beings that breathe and move

- Beowulf, Chapter 1

So then I tried "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe, which resulted in a humorous set of random words (including some nonense about embracing a rabbit--ludicrous in the context of the story). Then I tried part of Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the King, "The Last Battle", I believe. That ended in a more pleasing randomness.

And anyway, it was time to leave for RUF.

There are so many people coming to RUF these days that the leaders are trying to find a different place for the group to meet. I guess that's a good problem to have. Mr. K preached tonight about making everything we do serve the purpose of drawing people to sit at Christ's feet--from the end of Luke 10, where Christ gently rebukes Martha for her distraction. Mr. K pointed out that Martha's service was a good thing. She actually should have kept on serving because her work allowed Mary to sit at Christ's feet. But Martha was serving for the wrong reasons. Instead of rejoicing in her work because it allowed others to learn from Christ, she was bitter. Whatever we do ought to be done to bring others into worship.

After RUF, I stood by myself for awhile and watched the cheerful mayhem around me. David had found a blue balloon somewhere and was batting it around, trying to keep it from hitting the floor. He'd knock it into a knot of people, and they'd cheerfully toss it back at him. The Knorr children were scurrying in and out, through the groups of conversation. Syneva and Jenny S. descended on me at once. I thoroughly enjoyed their fellowship, though trying to hold a conversation with both of them at once was rather confusing since they're quite different. I laughed at Jenny S. (who has ensnared me into the murky pool of doing things last-minute--I've been doing things last-minute not because I want to but because I'm too busy to do them any other time), and asked Syneva about Amanda's whereabouts. Syneva informed us that Amanda has deserted her and gone off on a date to Stillwater. "I gave her a curfew of two o'clock, but she chafed," Syneva sighed with a grin. "Hey, you're being a good friend," Jenny S. laughed. Jenny S. and Syneva discussed Amanda's boyfriend, who reminds both of them of Jenny S.'s favorite actor.

Rachel and I walked back to Lottie together. The cool evening air was bracing. We talked about the Art and Coffee coming up at the end of October. I suggested that we read the hilarious dialogue Rachel wrote last semester for our First Seminar, a dialogue lampooning Freudian interpretation. "If we do that, you have to read one of your poems," she said. "Oh, dear," I groaned.

Back in our room, we've both been studying. I just added my discussion post for the week to the P&P website. The last thing I have to do (hopefully!) is write an ekphrastic poem. That is, a poem responding to some other form of art (music, sculpture, painting, etc.). I've often written such poems (they're the basis for the OSAI audition), but the trick will be finding the right piece of art. Sometimes I wish these assignments were a bit more limited!

Good-night, and God bless.

guess what?

Now Playing: Beethoven's 2nd symphony, first movement.

Some new pictures are up on photobucket.

www.photobucket.com

Username: Elfellyn
Password: psalm84

I haven't died... yet!

Keep praising God. Isaiah 40:1-31

leaves fall

Now Playing: "Stealing Second" by Chris Thile. Track 7, "Leaves Fall".

This morning I woke up feeling as though I'd prematurely aged eighty years. I was hard put to it to crawl out of bed, as stiff and aching as my body was. Rachel went running, but I stayed in the room and drank peppermint tea and di my devotions.

At eight o'clock, Rachel and I went downstairs to Nicole and Mary's room for the early morning prayer time that Jenny H. and Nicole have organized. Nicole is Lebanese, and Mary is Egyptian, so their room has an interesting decorative flair--bronze platters propped against the wall, pricked with Middle Eastern scenes; a glass lamp shaped like something out of the "Arabian Nights"; pictures of the Virgin and Child with captions in Arabic. Kathryn and Jenny H. came, too. Crystal came late, and very groggy. Nicole heated water in her big kettle, and we all drank tea. Rachel shared her camomile tea with me. It tasted rather odd, but it sure did make my throat feel better.

We shared prayer requests and read through Psalm 51, discussing it briefly. Everyone was fairly quiet, so there were long gaps between bursts of conversation.

Back upstairs after prayer time, I spent the morning writing e-mails and working on a short response paper for MAW. I practiced my flute for an hour: scales, a new half of my etude, and trills in Telemann. After I practiced, I went and sat on the bench outside Lorton, as usual. I couldn't bring myself to read "Othello", though. The morning was too fresh and bright. Starlings twittered and rustled in the branches of the elm tree above me. Rachel walked up and sat down on the bench next to me. She'd found a book of parodies of American literature at the library, and she read one poem that parodied something by Edgar Allan Poe. I sat and laughed quietly at her dramatic reading. Jenny S. came along, cheerful as always, and said hello.

In MAW, we talked about Edgar Allan Poe's short stories--an interesting discussion about how humans define themselves in relation to a story about a man who classifies people in an apparent attempt to define himself by exclusion (if that makes any sense).

Rachel and I ate lunch together.

For an hour after lunch I wrote more e-mails. At two o'clock, I strolled over to Syneva's apartment. The hot sunshine felt wonderful on my aching body. I walked in the grass, my feet sinking pleasantly deep into the lawn. Instead of staying in the apartment, Syneva and I drove over to Woodward Park, which is near the Philbrook Museum.

When we arrived at the park, we climbed out of the car and walked slowly down a slope to the rose garden. The sun shone luxuriously on the flowers--like sunlight on dark green waves, picking up flecks of red and gold and pink and cream where the light struck. Many of the roses are still blooming, though it's late in the growing season. Roman Holiday, Friendship--names rich and colorful as the flowers themselves. We talked about gardens. My mother likes to grow herbs in her garden, and Syneva loves to grow herbs, too. Her family grows flowers and vegetables mostly. We climbed a flight of big stone steps, scrambling up rather like small children climbing the steps of a throne. We stopped and sat on the lip of a lily pond for a little while. The concrete rim of the pool bounded the water like the circumference of a horizon, and looking into the water, I saw a small world--blue sky reflected, tiny grey fish flickering just under the surface, the feathery plumes of a water plant on long, lotus-like stems, the round leaves of the waterlilies, like firm green coins, and the delicate, pointed lilies themselves, glowing yellow and pale pink. Like looking into a mosaic, or one of the ancient floor-paintings. Our own faces were reflected in the black water, surrounded by rippling light. Syneva trailed her fingers through the water. I cupped the water in one hand, cold against my palm, sifting through my fingers.

We strolled up the slope and down again into the parkland on the other side. Huge red oak trees towered over the short grass. We left behind the open parkland and entered a band of low trees where the hill fell more steeply. We sat down beside a stream flowing down the hillside. As I sat down, the rough rocks along the bank poked into the backs of my legs. Wisteria bloomed in low bushes at the spring from which the stream flowed. "It smells delicious down here," Syneva said. A tree with smooth grey bark and red berries hung over the stream. Fallen berries bobbed in the water like confetti. The water leaped over the rocks, which it had smoothed in some places and gouged into sponge-shapes in others. Then it poured over a little waterfall, a clear, ever-changing curtain. The noise of the water was sweet as it rippled over the rocks.

For a long time we sat and talked beside the water. Syneva dipped a long twig into the current and twisted it around on the sandy floor of the stream, sending little plums of silt rocketing over the edge of the waterfall.

The afternoon sunshine had begun to slant through the leaves. Syneva glanced at her watch. "We should probably start walking back," she said. Reluctantly, I stood up, brushed myself off, and followed her back up the hill. "I wish we could drink the water from the stream," Syneva sighed. "It looks as though it would taste good." She told me that in Malaysia they were supposed to boil their water all the time, but most of the time she and her siblings would just let the water run until it turned clear. "Did you all ever drink out of the hose?" I asked, half-laughing. "Yes!" she replied. We reminisced jokingly about our childhood memories of drinking out of the hose, filling wading pools, splashing in the sprinkler. She and her siblings used to put the sprinkler under their trampoline and bounce until it was too slippery. "That's why I want to have kids--so that I can relive those times," Syneva said.

We drove back to campus through the Utica Square area. I goggled at the fancy buildings as I always do: the two monstrous hospitals, business compounds built like Mediterranean homes, with wrought-iron railings and red stucco walls, fancy restaurants and clothing stores and jewelers' shops.

Syneva dropped me off in front of Lottie. I strolled over to ACAC. On the way, I passed Nicole and Tara sitting on the lawn outside Lottie. They waved to me. I walked slowly, deliberately through the deep grass, not hurrying. I picked up a package in ACAC (Telemann sonata and tone practice book), saying good-day to David and James, who were also waiting at the mail services office.

When I walked back to Lottie, I found Nicole sitting alone under the tree. I sat down beside her. She shared some biscotti with me--crunchy pastry with a thin layer of chocolate on the bottom and a thin layer of peanuts on the top. She asked about my day, and inquired after my family. I told her a little bit about what Philip is doing these days. She has a brother in a similar position. He's also applying to colleges and trying to find scholarships.

Back up in the room, I found Rachel busy doing homework. I lay down on my bed and read Walt Whitman for MAW next Tuesday. When I finished reading, I let myself doze for an hour or so. I've been concerned all afternoon with this business about Augustine. It really bothers me that I still don't have my class schedule worked out. Dr. S and my father have been advising me, but I'm afraid that I'll be second-guessing myself for the rest of the semester.

After awhile, I dragged myself out of bed and worked on my Honors paper for next Monday--another short essay, this time about a character from "Hamlet". I chose Horatio.

At six-fifteen, I walked over to the cafeteria for supper. I found Jenny, Tara, Alisha, Eleanor, and Austin sitting together at a table. "E--! Will you come sit with me?" Jenny called. I grinned at her, "Sure." "Oh, that makes me feel so much better and calmer," she laughed. Others joined us: James, Katie, Grant, Jenny H., Crystal, and Elizabeth.

After supper, I returned to the room to work on my paper. Once I'd finished a draft, I started on this entry.

The evening outside is cool and dark. Rachel has gone down the hall to the study lounge to chat with her family. Everyone in the dorm seems to be in a crazy mood tonight. I hear people shouting and laughing in the halls, flip-flops thocking against bare heels, boys' voices teasing. A little while ago, a couple of girls who are complete strangers stuck their heads through the door and asked if they could see our room. They were both blond, wearing sweats, and both of them were being silly. "Your room is huge!" they said. They opened the closet doors and looked all around. "Our room is tiny. I'm going to request a room exchange!" one of them said. They were both incredibly hyper and bouncy. I stood by my desk and gave humorous responses to their bubbly questions. Through the open window, I can hear people yelling on the intramural field and cars rattling by in the streets. The zinnias I brought back from home are beginning to fade.

peaches, moths, spiders, and zinnias

Now Playing: "Bethena", by Scott Joplin. This is one of my all-time favorite ragtime pieces.

This morning I didn't go running (feeling wheezy and achy and dizzy! augh!). Rachel went to bed really late last night, so when the alarm clock went off, though I managed to drag myself upright and get dressed, she stayed in bed for awhile, until I turned on one of the lights.

For breakfast, I shared a peach with her, one of the peaches my mother and I bought at Wal-Mart last weekend. So far, these peaches have been perfect: firm, juicy, sweet, round and full. While I ate my peach, I scrambled to tie off some of the odds and ends left lying around from yesterday. Then I hurried off to practice my flute for an hour. Peeking into the lounge at the end of the basement hall in search of a music stand, I saw someone asleep on the sofa--probably a worn-out pianist.

After piano practice (during which I read "Othello", and was suitably disgusted), I went upstairs for Music Theory. Today the School of Music was holding a bake sale in the first floor hall outside the secretary's office. Donuts, cookies, brownies, cinnamon rolls, and other sweet pastries were laid out on a couple of tables. I stood and read studiously until class started. In class today: the circle of fifths, building scales, etc.

After theory, I headed over to Zink for Honors class. We're finishing up "Hamlet". Today we talked about various matters: Whether the ghost is real (one of the ridiculous questions that modern literary criticism loves to raise--of course the ghost is real--it's on the list of dramatis personae!), what the role of governance plays in the tale (and what people are governed by), etc.

Flute lesson after Honors. It went fairly well. Dr. R assigned a whole bunch of material for me to photocopy and read about trills. Since I'm playing Telemann, it seems natural to work on trills, but it's also a bit frustrating because they're (apparently) such a minute part of the music.

Lunch next. I was going to sit by myself and read "Othello", but David and Asher invited me to sit with them at one of the round tables. They started out being calm enough--swapping stories about our morning, laughing at professors (Asher has had Dr. M, my theory teacher, for classes before), etc. Then the boys launched into silliness--Asher brandishing bananas like light sabres, and David singing ridiculous ditties, until they were laughing so hard that they couldn't stop. Asher was almost crying from laughter. Tara, Rachel, Alisha, and another girl I don't know drifted down and sat with us. The boys managed to collect themselves somewhat when the other girls showed up, but whenever I glanced in Asher's direction, he'd burst out laughing again.

Rachel and I walked back to our room together after lunch. She showed me a little bit of a Marx Brothers show--absolutely hilarious. Then she read part of a spoof of "Hamlet" to me. She did an excellent job acting out the different parts, even to the fake Italian accent belonging to one of the Marx Brothers--a one-girl comedy act. I perched on my bed and laughed and laughed, especially when the Three Stooges appeared. Apparently, someone wrote a spoof of "Hamlet" with a variety of famous comedy groups in place of some of the characters (not all the characters--many of the characters are left serious, which highlights the silliness of the comedians). I've put the link to the script down under links.

We settled into a serious afternoon after that. I listened to the Brahms "Requiem" and violin concerto while I attempted to write a poem for P&P. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. We had two assignments this week. I'd already completed one of the assignments, but the other one gave me fits. The assignment was to take one poem from an author we'd read the first week, and one poem from one of the 19th-century authors mentioned in the lecture last week, and use the words from their poems to create a new poem of our own. I sat down and tried to wrestle with various poems by Dana Gioia, Emily Dickinson, and Alfred Tennyson. At first, the trouble was that I didn't know what to make the words mean--and then the trouble was that I couldn't find words to say what I meant. Halfway through this excruciating process, I decided it was too much for me. So I curled up on my bed by the open window with Book 3 of Paradise Lost, and read it straight through, taking notes along the way. Milton has an "interesting" (you know how I say the word :o) set of theological values--some of which seem Calvinist, and some of which don't quite fit. I lay and puzzled over them and dozed and puzzled some more. Rachel came back from her one o'clock class to find me in the midst of this.

When I'd finished Book 3, I picked myself up and brewed a cup of blueberry green tea for Rachel, and a cup for myself. Bending over the steaming cup, I settled myself down to work on the poem. It took me two hours (and another cup of tea). The poem moved through various iterations: autumn, saying good-bye, planting tulips with Laura (a fictional experience pieced together from real experiences), drought, etc., all rolled into one. Brahms didn't work, so I put on Loreena McKennitt and decided to write a poem that evoked a place, using Gioia's "Planting a Sequoia" and Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott" (no, I did not choose "The Lady of Shalott" because it's long and has lots of words). In the end, the poem turned out being not at all what I'd expected.

Rachel came with me for supper. We didn't talk much. I tried asking questions about her siblings and about "Hamlet", but my brain was fried after doing poetry all afternoon. Crystal sat with us and ate in haste. Rachel walked with Crystal and me as far as the library, then went off about her own affairs.

Crystal and I walked into P&P five minutes before six o'clock. The first half of the discussion today was about the difference between "radical" and "conservative" poetry as delineated by Barbara Guest in her essays. Dr. G pointed out that Guest's thesis is that there is no difference really--both styles use imagination. I was mostly silent for this part, wanting to weigh and consider everything that was said. The discussion started out with a recap of Gioia's poetry (we hadn't gone over it last week), and one girl said some pretty nasty things about Gioia. For me, the trouble was that I recognize in my poetry some of his tendencies. Such criticism always makes me wonder if I should even be trying to write poetry, if this should be my field, or if I should just get out of here and let the "experts" do what they think they know how to do. A bleak thought.

The professors let us have a break at about seven-thirty. I stood outside for a little while, as I always do, to see what sky and weather are doing.

The second half of the discussion was more interesting, and I participated more. We discussed Barbara Guest's poetry. The more we talked about it, the more I understood and began to be able to enjoy it. Her poetry is abstract, expressionist--like those modern paintings that consist of splatters (think Pollock). She writes in response to these paintings a lot of the time, though the poems we studied tonight were written in response to paintings by Matisse. But she uses words the way a painter uses color--a palette of words, arranged to evoke emotion. I don't like her poetry because there's no structure or determinate meaning, but she has beautiful little images, like bits of mosaics taken from the paintings, and the images alone are pretty.

We also talked a bit about Jackson MacLow. This particular chap takes text, fits it into a computer, and the program spits out "poetry". Detestable stuff. No meaning whatsoever, unlike Guest--not even any beautiful images. Just words strung together. Ick.

After class, Crystal and I walked over to Lottie together, discussing class, as usual. We've come to the decision that we're going to be forced to write free verse in this class. The professors certainly don't structure any of the assignments to be conducive to traditional poetry with rhyme and rhythm.

As we passed the chapel, I paused in a moment of childish wonder. A huge moth was fluttering around one of the tall lamps. The moth dashed itself against the glass bulb, then spiraled to the ground, swerving around the black lamppost like a comet swirling out of orbit. Its danced off to batter itself against the sandstone wall of the chapel, its rounded silhouette flickering over the angular shadows of the pale stones. It fluttered away to rest, exhausted, on one of the branches of an oak tree in the library plaza. I could see its wings rising and falling like a gasping body.

We parted ways--she went over to visit the girls in the Penthouse (as Tara/Jenny S./Alisha's apartment is called now), and I walked to Lottie. As I passed through the front door, I paused again. A fat spider with long legs was weaving a perfect web between the supports of the entry area. The strands of the web shone glossily under the porch light, which shone right in that corner. Unfortunately for the spider, there were absolutely no bugs buzzing around the light. But the spider didn't seem to realize. Persistently, it scrambled from spoke to spoke, threading its silk from its spinerettes with its hind legs. The web was perfect, jeweled with light where the main spokes met. The spider's legs glowed copper under the strong light. I stood for a long while, admiring the spider's handiwork, before I went inside.

In the dorm, I came upstairs to the room, where I found a message from Rachel telling me that she won't be back until ten-thirty. So I've been sitting up here with the door open, writing and listening to various things--"Nickel Creek" now.

look out! they're back!

Now Playing: "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" soundtrack by Howard Shore. Track 17, "The Return of the King".

Before I lose my nerve, I'm going to post these, which is probably Bad Idea #1. I just wrote them, which is Bad Idea #2. They should be read with Psalm 119 in mind. I've tried to capture the goodness of God's Word which calls us from death to life, from darkness to light, and which urges us to rejoice in God more and more.

I wrote these poems with certain people in mind, so they are "for" those people, in Christ.

Tabitha

I loved my friends, Your people, and I sewed
Good clothes for them. You know, O Lord—I used
The hands You gave me to embroider rows
Of flowers on the hems, to knit child’s shoes.
I loved Your people, and that was my sin.
You prisoned me in death and made my hands
Fall frail and empty on the bed. Eyes dimmed.
Your glory blinded me, and made my end.
Gazelle who tried to slake her thirst in dust,
In rags that fade, has drunk from death—full cup—
And my feet stumbled on the road I trusted.
At last, You called my name and raised me up—
To serve You only and to seek Your face,
You set my feet again in Your high place.

The Lamppost

I push between the snowy firs. Warm wool
Gave way to needles just back there. I crawl
Beneath dark trunks. Then something soft and cool
Slips down my neck. I grin and scramble on.
Snowflakes catch in my lashes. Far ahead
I see a light high up among the trees,
Trapped like a moth between trees’ spiderwebs.
I walk toward it, sinking to my knees.
I crackle through a rhododendron. Then—
How odd! A lamppost in an empty wood?
Snow sparkles, stars that brush my open hands,
Falling through the light. I wonder: Could
This be more beautiful? The light snow whirls
On endless forest—oh, a lovely world!

The Rainbow

I walked through darkness, wind, a thunderstorm,
My fists like rain that beat against the glass.
I stumbled through the maze that I had sworn
I’d never see again—this emptiness.
Then You held up my head, and broke the dawn.
You barred my dark horizon with a bow,
A rainbow’s gate across clouds’ gonfalons,
Into the West. You took Your Word and showed
Me all Your promises ranged in their ranks,
Mounted like the clouds in endless heights. I stepped
On promises as on high waves, and drank
Them with my tears, with joy. O Lord, You let
Me fall in doubt so that I might upraise
My wings, hawk-wise, soar higher in Your praise.

Extra, extra! Read all about it! Enid Bible study under attack by ferocious Indians!

Now Playing: "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" soundtrack by Howard Shore. Track 9, "The White Rider".

September 3, 2006

After church, Anna came over and spent the afternoon. When my father finished reading, I fixed tea for my father, Anna, and myself. My father poured his into a waterbottle with ice, to keep himself awake on the road. I added milk and sugar to my cup and to Anna’s cup, and we carried them gingerly as we slipped into our seats in the car. We drove to Enid: Anna, myself, and Stephen in the back; Laura and Philip in the middle; my father and mother in the front. Laura put on an AIO CD. Anna and I sipped our hot tea (I had a biscuit from Scotland, too—just like old times :o) and listened to AIO.

We were the first to arrive at the Wagners’ house. Beth, Missy, Austin, and Ryan were hanging out in the kitchen. Katie came downstairs. I slipped my sandals off, sat at the kitchen table, and listened to the girls talk and laugh with Austin and Ryan. During the study, I sat between Anna and Philip. Mr. Wagner taught on Hebrews 13:1-4 (he meant to do 1-6, but couldn't). The discussion followed several long rabbit trails: about what classes of people Paul means for us to minister to, and about the place of marriage. I sketched elaborate designs in my journal between taking notes. “I love your bird,” Anna whispered, watching over my shoulder. After the study, Jonathan, who’d been sitting on Philip’s other side, laughed, “I’d glance at your journal, and there’d be a little bit of a drawing—and then I’d look back five seconds later and go, ‘Whoa!’.”

Elizabeth and I sat on the floor in a corner, ate our supper, and talked. She told me all about the strange people in her Greek class: three dweebs, a couple of linguistics geeks, some pre-seminary students, a fashonista, and a couple of quiet girls. We laughed about languages—Greek and Latin, inflections, deponents, subjunctives, ablatives. After awhile, we drifted outside and sat on the back porch. We talked about Edgar Alan Poe and “Hamlet”—both of which are somewhat laughable in their melodrama. Katie and Ryan sat on the back steps next to each other, laughing at Jonathan and Stephen. Jonathan had swiped Calvin’s wheelchair and was paddling himself around on the back patio, trying to play basketball with Stephen, who ran circles round him, dribbling the ball and shooting fancy baskets. Logan pushed Calvin on the swings and chatted with Anna. Elizabeth and I watched a large spider weave a web from the eaves to the porch railing in front of us. The creature wove intricate streamers together, zooming down and scurrying up again. The web gleamed glossily in the porch light.

As we sat and talked, and made fun of Jonathan, bloodcurdling yells broke out in the front yard. A few moments later, a swarm of Indians pranced onto the patio, waving sticks. Ryan and Jonathan grabbed sturdy chunks of wood from the firewood stack by the porch, but to no avail—the Indians tied them up to the basketball goal and prepared to scalp them and burn them at the stake. Christa, the littlest Indian, waved her tomahawk ferociously. Her comrades—including Ben, Greg, Stephen, and Laura—poked the captives mercilessly. (Elizabeth, Katie, and I nearly died laughing.) Suddenly, Philip leaped from behind a tree, slashed the captives’ bonds, and raced off into the darkness, with a mob of screaming Indians scampering behind him. We heard yells and shouts echoing from the back yard—and then the Indians returned with Philip captive. They bound him to the basketball goal and prepared to repeat the hideous scalp-‘em-and-burn-‘em process. Just then, Captain Thunderbolt burst upon the scene, and with one fell swoop, freed the captives. Captain Thunderbolt then sprinted off into the darkness, and the process was repeated.

I ran down the porch steps to watch the proceedings—and found myself being trailed by Stinky the Indian (i.e., Christa), who announced, “You run! I chase you!” and waved her tomahawk at me. I took off, running round the corner of the house, hardly able to run because I was laughing so hard. Stinky pattered after me, our bare feet crunching in the grass. “Stop! I catch you!” she shouted. I hid behind the garden wall and jumped out of her when she ran around the corner. She was not impressed—she grabbed my hands (oh, woe is me!) and bound me to the basketball goal (lackaday!). Philip, who’d gotten tired of the game, stood on the back porch with Katie and Elizabeth, watching and laughing. I pled for his mercy, and he finally came and untied me. I snatched up a stick from the firewood stack and engaged Stinky in single combat.

Meanwhile, the ferocious Peanut Gallery Indian Tribe had captured our heroes (Captain Thunderbolt and Jonathan) and tied them to the basketball goal. I was in the midst of fighting off Stinky in order to beat back the Indians (though both Captain Thunderbolt and Jonathan appeared to have things well under control), but then Anna stepped out on the back porch and yelled, “Time to go!”

That disbanded the Tribe. I tossed my rapier back onto the firewood pile and pushed Calvin to the car. He’d been watching the fun from his wheelchair on the patio. “You’re fat. And stupid,” he told me while I wheeled him around the house. “Oh. Thanks,” I said. “That’s the moon up there. It looks funny,” he said, pointing to the three-quarters moon, which was hidden behind thin clouds. “No, it’s not the moon. It’s an alien spaceship. They’re coming to feed you chocolate,” I informed him. “I don’t believe you,” he chirped. Dani came around the corner of the car. “Calvin! Watch what you say,” she reprimanded him. The rest of the troop came clattering out of the house, carrying an assortment of odds and ends (Bibles, a cooler, notebooks, the ever-present canvas bag with Christa’s seizure medication, etc.). Jonathan lifted Calvin into the van while Logan folded away Calvin’s wheelchair.

Anna needed to get her Sunday clothes out of the car (she borrowed some of my clothes for the evening), so we went inside to get the car keys from my father. For awhile, we sat in the small courtyard by the front door and talked. The walls of the “secret garden” held at bay the squeals and laughter from the van in the driveway. The cool autumn wind rustled in the dying flowers and grasses, and water trickled quietly in a ceramic fountain. Little lights bobbed in the branches of the holly tree. “Time to go, Annie Laurie!” Mr. Fisher said cheerfully as he walked past on his way to the car. I hugged Anna and Elizabeth good-bye. I had to run inside to grab my things—sandals and knapsack—before my own family left. On the way home, I stared out the window, turning lines of poetry over in my mind. I’m working on three short poems right now, and they’re giving me fits. We listened to AIO. At home, we took showers and went to bed.

rainbows and bridges

Now Playing: One of the "Lord of the Dance" tracks, courtesy Anna.

This morning it was quite dark when I woke up--as dark as it will be later on, in November or December. I was surprised, but I dressed to go running anyway. Rachel doesn't go running with me on Friday mornings; instead, she goes to the RUF prayer meeting at seven o'clock. I pulled on my jacket and ran downstairs, ready to go outside. As I hurried, I glanced out the window in the stairwell, and realized to my dismay that the window was freckled with raindrops. Outside, it was raining hard. I've had a mild cold these past couple of days, and though I like being out in the rain, it seemed foolish in this particular situation. So I hauled myself upstairs again.

Rachel went off to the prayer meeting, but I stayed behind to do my personal devotions. When I raised my head from prayer, I looked out the window--and was met by a stunningly beautiful sight. Spanning the Western horizon, from edge to edge, was a magnificent rainbow. It leapt in a perfect, unbroken arc. I pressed my face against the glass for a better view, and gasped with delight when I realized that, to the north, there was a faint reflection, a double rainbow above the first one. As the sun rose, the colors deepend against the grey clouds. Hope.

I finished my devotions filled with a sense of awe.

I ate an orange quickly while I read e-mails and checked WebCT for P&P assignments. By the time I had packed up the books I needed for the day, the sky had cleared. The morning was steamy, water like gold leaf on the brick path. I practiced my flute for an hour and read "Hamlet". In MT, we had a quiz, and definitions for metronome markings and dynamics. The professor told us, "In Italian, you add 'issimo' to mean 'more'. For example, 'piano', 'pianissimo', 'pianississimo'. It's similar to Oklahoman, when you thank someone. You say, 'Thank yew!', and they say, 'Thank yeww,' and you say, 'Thank yewww,' and they say, 'Thank yewwwww'. The more 'yew' you put in, the more grateful you are."

In Honors, we left behind "King Henry IV" and moved on to "Hamlet". Dr. W likes to talk, and he likes to read aloud. He goes off on long anecdotes, which actually makes the class rather unsatisfying. Today we spent most of the time talking about the mechanics of Shakespeare's language, which, as Rachel pointed out, was a relief--we haven't discussed this topic at all. Shakespeare knows how to turn the conventions of rhyme and rhythm to serve his purpose, so that sound and sense walk hand-in-hand to present dramatic meaning.

After Honors class, Rachel told me, "I went to pick up a package today, and they handed me a package with your name on it. I said, 'This is my roommate's!', so they took it away and gave me mine. But you might want to go check and see if it's there still." So I parted ways with Rachel and Kathryn, and sauntered over to ACAC to the mail department. The mail department is tucked in a nook behind the food court. There's a window at the front of the department, with a broad, desk-like sill. Through the window, I could see the mail department: metal shelves stacked with boxes, a shelf for each residence hall; a large, rough table covered with packages and burlap sacks; a big canvas bin; and a confused variety of boxes, parcels, and bags. A couple of men were busy sorting things. The clerk at the window was a pale-faced, brusque chap with a shaved head and small, beady eyes. "My roommate said I have a package, but somehow I didn't get a slip for it," I said curtly, pulling out my ID. He asked me for my room number, and from a row of shelves at the back of the room, he picked up a bulging box. "I think you have another package, too. Do you want to pick it up now?" he asked. "Sure," I said. He produced another parcel, this one long and thin. "Sign here," he told me.

With a sense of satisfaction, I picked up my packages and trudged all the way across campus to Lottie. The walk, which normally takes about ten minutes, took about twice as long. My textbooks, notebook, and flute in my knapsack grew heavier and heavier, dragging down my shoulders, and my arms strained, trying to keep a grip on the bulky packages. I was thankful to find the door of our room open, and Rachel sitting placidly inside, doing her homework. I deposited the packages on my desk and let my knapsack slump to the floor.

While my computer booted, I opened the smaller package and found my new etude book. I forced myself to wait to open the second package until after I had completed several odd tasks left over from the week: revising my statement of proposed research and community service for TURC (the independent study program) and e-mailing that with a paper to Dr. S, and submitting my P&P assignment. I agonized over the assignment. It's a bad piece of verse, hardly worth the name in my opinion. But I'm stuck with it. With a wrench, I hit the "submit" button on WebCT--and, with a sense of irony, clicked "OK" when the site asked me if I was sure that I wanted to submit the assignment.

After I'd submitted the assignment, I took a pair of scissors to the large package. It was an old, battered CBD box, with my parents' address taped on top. A package from home! Excited and eager, I tore open the packing tape. Yellow tissue paper and newspaper layered the top of the box. I pulled these off, and found a whole zoo of odd little packages below: a jar of honey-covered peanuts, a package of wheat crackers (yum!), a row of boxes full of raisins in tidy plastic wrap (they go great with peanuts), a fuzzy little seal with big eyes, a sock doll with a twisted pipecleaner hat that reminded me of the aluminum foil hats in "Signs", and a whole bunch of other mysterious packages, all done up in white tissue paper. Happy, with a quirky little smile, I took out the seal and the sock doll (seal donated by Stephen, sock doll sewed by Laura) and set them on the shelf by my bed. I let myself open one of the small packages and found inside a neon green pencil case--one of the very things I'd often told myself would be quite useful for keeping my collection of pens, pencils, markers, etc. from tumbling around like a bunch of pebbles in my desk.

Well, I packed up. Then I hugged Rachel good-bye and walked over to Laci's apartment for the "break-off" non-freshman girls' RUF Bible study. There are four or five girls (including yours truly) who can't go to the study on Wednesday nights, so Alisha kindly organized a second study, on the same topic, for us.

Laci's apartment is in the same block as Tarylisha's apartment (Amanda coined this name for Tara-Jenny S.-Alisha when Rachel and I were hanging out with her one evening). Laci, Alisha, and Stephanie were already there. Crystal came, too. Alisha brought pizza for us to eat for lunch.

We spent an hour discussing the first chapter of The Enemy Within. I mostly listened to the other girls. Stephanie, Laci, and Crystal are all fairly talkative. The first chapter is mostly introductory. We talked about Romans 7 and the struggle that we as Christians face with sin: sin constantly with us, even when we're trying to do good. No Sabbath rest on this earth from sin. It offers rewards and consequences to us for not obeying its law, and its pull on us is as natural and inevitable as the pull of gravity. Alisha pointed out that many unbelievers don't realize sin's hold on them at all. They may have twinges of conscience, but they just plow, full steam ahead, in the river of sin. Christians struggle because they are trying to swim upstream against sin's strong current, so in some sense our struggle against sin is an assurance of our faith.

After the study, we shared prayer requests, and Laci prayed. Then I took my farewell and hurried back to Lottie. I collected my bags, said good-bye to Rachel, who's looking forward to the long weekend, and slogged out to the car.

The drive home was largely uneventful. It took me an hour and thirty minutes, though--a painfully long time.

I stopped at home briefly to grab my dance shoes. The house was completely quiet. I drove to the TCS gym for Irish dance class. Mrs. Hill, the teacher, was out in the middle of the gym with two lines of dancers. The younger children were in front, and the older youth/adults (my mother) were in back. My mother scowled at me and gestured me to hurry up and join in. They were learning the jig step. Not having had time to pull on my shoes, I danced barefoot, my toes grinding the cool, smooth concrete floor. I entered as gamely as I could. I know the basic jig and reel steps, so it wasn't too hard for me to catch on. Ruth took me as her partner. Mrs. Hill taught us the Bridge of Athlone, making the music play gradually faster and faster until the line skeined out jaggedly because the older dancers were taking larger steps, and the little ones couldn't keep up.

After class ended, at three-thirty, everyone lingered. Little Emily and Mary skipped around the gym, jigging carelessly. I chatted a little with Anna and Sarah. Outside, the "four musketeers" (Will, William, Ben, and Greg) climbed on the iron frame around the airconditioning unit. Emily, perched on the running board of the Carrolls' suburban, called me over.
"Are you E--?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, "Can I have a hug?"
"Sure," she said. I hugged her. She fingered my cross necklace. "Is that a cross?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Did you know that Jesus died on the cross?" she inquired.
"Yes, He died to save us from sin," I replied.
"You have a cross. You can pretend He's still on the cross," she said with a silly smile.
I half-raised an eyebrow at the theology of this last statement.
"Where are your mommy and daddy?" she asked idly.
"My mommy is inside, and my daddy is at work," I told her, "Look! There's my mommy with your mommy."
"Oh. Is that your mommy in the blue dress? And red shoes?"
"Yes," I said, "Is that your mommy in the pink shirt?"
"Yes," she informed me, "and white shoes. Where's your daddy?"
"At work," I responded.
"Oh. So's mine," she said. "Ruth is coming over to our house. Why aren't you coming over to our house?"
Ruth came over and explained that her mommy is away, so Emily's mommy said she could come to Emily's house for awhile. Emily told us all about her doll with "yellow hair".

Back at home, I found the house quiet. Laura had stayed at the gym for basketball practice. Philip was doing homework and trying to sleep in his room. Stephen had taken himself off to Daniel's house for the afternoon. My mother had already started work on an early supper in the kitchen, so I sat down in the dining room with a stack of stationery to chat with her and to write thank-you notes. I told her about my week, all the little oddments of news that hadn't been filtered through our e-mails. She bustled in and out--watering the wilted bell pepper plants outside (the afternoon was hotter than expected), warming up leftovers, snipping basil from the garden, feeding the cats, slicing squash, sharing out lettuce on each plate, setting the table.

We ate an early supper. After supper, my mother drove Laura off to spend the evening volunteering with the rest of the youth group.

The evening has been quiet: Philip doing Spanish homework upstairs, my father renewing the virus protection on my computer and looking over Philip's Calculus homework, my mother grading Stephen's literature paper (he read "Thanatopsis", which we read in MAW last week), me reading the latest "Smithsonian" magazine, about cannibals in Papua New Guinea.