Now Playing: Laura with her guinea pig and Stephen on the computer.

1 January 2009.

The reason I white rabbited none of you poor people out there this New Year's is that I was at the Wagners' house for the day with two of my charming siblings. Missy and I stayed up until three the night before talking, so when pale sunshine started to slant through the blinds at eight o'clock in the morning, I woke up, blinked, wondered how anyone was supposed to sleep with that much light in the room, and promptly attempted it, with the result that Mrs. Wagner had to wake both Missy and me up at half ten. I took a shower and was downstairs just in time for breakfast, or brunch if you prefer. Missy and Mrs. Wagner had prepared scrambled eggs and French toast casserole. Katie and Missy are the only two Wagner girls home right now, so there were seven at the table. We spent a long time just sitting and talking and laughing so that it was past noon by the time the food was cleared away and the dishes washed.

Mrs. Wagner, Missy, Laura, and I played a game of Scrabble. Philip and Mr. Wagner left to play raquetball on the USAF base, and when they came back, Philip "helped" us. Mrs. W and Missy knitted busily. This is one of Mrs. W's first projects, so both Missy and Laura were giving her advice. The two dogs, Reese (chocolate lab) and Taffy (golden retriever, but looks like an Irish setter), prowled around, tails thumping against the coffee table, hunting for attention. Taffy put her sleek ginger head in my lap so that I could rub her behind the ears.

We played in a leisurely fashion. When we finished our game, and Philip finished his shower, the six of us drove to the base to go bowling. The roads on base are arranged with roundabouts, which always catch me slightly off-guard since I'm used to approaching roundabouts from the opposite direction and having them built up with odds and ends of trees or bits of boats and flowerbeds on them. The bowling alley on base is small, clean, and fairly new. It's also very cheap. One game is only fifty cents. Four of the six lanes were occupied by young families with wee kids. We took the other two lanes, Laura, Mrs. W, and me on one, Philip, Katie, and Missy on the other. Mrs. W won the first game, and I won the second, though I was absolutely abysmal. Mrs. W bought tatertots and French fries, which we consumed quickly. Between turns, I asked Mrs. W questions about her family and how she came to know the Lord--through meeting Christians on base after she and Mr. W were married. She came from a Catholic family.

After a couple of rounds, we drove back to the Wagners' house. Philip ran outside to play with the dogs, and after trying to help the other girls find a film to watch tonight, I joined him. The evening wasn't too cold, but bracing, clear. Taffy was loping along the western fenceline, barking at the next door neighbor's children. Her red-gold fur was silky in the failing sunshine. Reese, on the other hand, was doing what she was made to do: retrieving. Philip and I teased her for being a ball-worshipper. Philip was her high priest. He had a tennis racket, and every time she brought the ball to him, he'd bounce it onto the tennis racket and hold it high above her head, while she stared at it adoringly with her big Precious Moments eyes, until he whacked it far out into the yard with the racket, and she raced after it, tearing up the lawn with her speed, sending grass and dust in spiraling trails as she wheeled to grab it in her mouth. She never tired, though she did slow down and begin to hold onto the ball for a little bit longer. Taffy ran circles around her, barking, trying to play the game, too. Reese growled at her in annoyance. Philip and I ran around with the dogs, laughed at Reese, laughed at Taffy, played tricks on Reese, wrestled with Taffy, and so forth, until Reese was almost too sore to run and the light began to fail. The clear sky overhead was becoming deep ringing blue when we went inside.

Upstairs, Missy and Laura were watching "I Love Lucy". I sat on the floor in Missy's room with them until teatime. Mrs. W had made special Mexican soup and cornbread for tea as a New Year's treat. We sat long over the meal, chatting and laughing. Mr. W teased Philip about his "goat beard" and asked him if he ever found the sudden urge to go around baaing. "Well, he does eat everything in sight," I said, which made them laugh. We sat round, just talking about school and family and life in general, and about politics a little bit.

After tea, we drove to Enid's illustrious mall, where we stood in line for ages to buy tickets and then went to see Marley and Me. Pleasant little story. At least it doesn't gloss over some of the hard parts about marriage and childrearing, though of course I wouldn't know much about that. It was strange to watch the actors "mature" and to try to get one's mind around the fact that this will be me, or at least my siblings and friends, over the next twenty years.

Back at the Wagners' house, Mr. and Mrs. W and Katie went to bed almost immediately, though it was only about twenty to ten. Missy, Philip, Laura, and I made hot chocolate. We sat at the dining room table with a box of oreos and played a round of Mille Bornes. We had to teach Missy. She's supposed to be learning how to be nice to guys, but she claimed (when Philip objected to her playing an accident on him) that that rule was suspended for games. When we finished, at about half ten, we all went to bed. Missy and I only stayed up talking (about CY retreats mostly) for a little while before I was too drowsy to do anything but mutter in agreement, and we both went to sleep.

Pictures from the CY retreat.

Not entirely fair to make so many posts in one day, but I did want to say that this weekend parcels from Emmaline and Catherine and an amazing card from the Wilsons arrived. Very happy times. Laura was delighted with the Percy Pigs, and I sat on my bed and laughed for ages over the ridiculous cow card.

Laura and I decorated the house this morning. We listened to The Nutcracker, which seemed appropriate. We unpacked the most battered cardboard boxes ever, which live on the top shelf in the laundry room and are mostly full of newspaper with a few ornaments thrown in for good measure. Yards and yards of brown packing tape crumbling from their battered corners. A lot of the decorations are fairly ancient. While Laura put knicknacks and odds-and-ends on the living room bookshelves (the traditional wooden jigsaw puzzle beasties, a tiny tree with colorful lights, Noel Christmas holders in the shape of a train), I tried to hang the big wreath over the dining room door, resulting in a quarter-inch splinter in my finger. When the wreath was finally hung, Laura chose ornaments to go on it. The result doesn't look too bad, though in the process I dropped a green glass ball, which smashed all over the dining room floor. My mother remarked calmly that she'd always wanted to know what happened when one of those broke, and swept up the sherds silently.

Now Playing: "Age of Empires" on the boys' computers upstairs.

An account of the Ponca City Christmas ball. (Yes, Emmaline, we danced the Waves of Tory at both dances, and it was AMAZING! :o) No Strip the Willow, though the Virginia Reel is very similar.)

19 December 2008. Slept well and woke at about half nine. The basement bedroom is dark, of course, at the bottom of the Colles’ huge mazelike house with all of its random oddments from far-away countries (mostly Asian), and its warm Christmas decorations on the main levels, poinsettias, red and gold. Mrs. Colle knocked on the door to say that breakfast was ready. Syneva, Stefni, and Rachael had already left to start decorating the hall, but Alyson, Philip, Grant, and I ate at the table in the kitchen, delicious blueberry waffles, hot off the griddle.

We packed the cars with more decorations and drove out to assist with the decorating process at about half ten. The hall is a “memorial”, built in the 1970s, across the street from the highschool on the other side of Ponca City. It’s not a particularly beautiful building. It’s just a concert hall. Inside, the wooden floor extends in an enormous pentagonal fan toward the stage, with the hall doors as the shortest side. On the two long sides, rows and rows of chairs ascend up to the high ceiling, looking down on the expanse of floor. When we arrived, Stefni was hanging lines of icicle lights along the railings running down the two sides where the seating was while Syneva sat in the seats, splicing songs. Jacob and Josiah set to work setting up the twelve-foot Christmas tree. Philip, Alyson, Grant, and I “fluffed out” the fake plastic needles and hung the ornaments, which were incredibly fancy, red and bronze, heavy Renaissance-style things. Mr. Colle arrived with a set of light-up deer and a pair of light-up moose, which made Syneva and I laugh. Mrs. Colle and another woman were busy decorating the table where the food was to be. Alyson sat on the stage wrapping boxes to go under the tree. Rachael and I sat with Syneva and the boys while they tried to figure out how to splice the songs.

We spent all morning there. All the wee things that had to be done were done very slowly: there seemed to be a lot of bustling about nothing, flicking, twisting, plugging in, moving about, arranging, rearranging, but all with a happy spirit. When the sound system was hooked up to Syneva’s laptop, the riotous Mannheim Steamroller song for the Grand March came on, and I couldn’t help dancing the two-hand by myself. Syneva thought aloud to Rachael and me, trying to figure out a better way to dance the Grand March. We unpacked more ornaments, wrapped more presents….

Stefni, Rachael, Jacob, Josiah, and I went back to the Colles’ house at about one o’clock to bake pizza for lunch. Stefni and Rachael didn’t need much help, so I settled down in the living room with my laptop to write up yesterday’s journal entry, and when the others returned, they collected nearby. Syneva flopped down on the sofa beside me, and we talked about our plans for next year, going to the U.K., and so forth, while everyone else listened. The pizza was ready at about two o’clock. We crowded around the table in the kitchen, talking about plans for tonight. Thin early afternoon sunshine streamed through the long windows.

Philip, Alyson, Grant, and I spent the afternoon icing cookies, batch after batch of sugar cookies, as Rachael cut them out of the dough and baked them. While Alyson edged each cookie in thick white icing, the three of us slathered on runnier colored icing that filled in the outline. Grant was careful to make each cookie rather wild. It was a fun time. Someone had turned on orchestral Christmas music on the speaker system in the living room, and we worked away while Syneva and Stefni bustled around us, preparing other foodstuffs and sewing last minute repairs on dresses before the ball. When tea was ready, at about five o’clock, I took a plate of rice and meatballs up to Stefni’s room and sat on the floor, watching while Stefni painted glamorous blue-and-silver swirls and sequins on Syneva’s face.

After I ate, I ran downstairs to get ready with Alyson, the two of us doing our hair and makeup in the bathroom together, then going into separate rooms to wiggle into our dresses. Everything was all a-flutter. The Colle guys were, of course, ready first, and left with Syneva and Stefni to add final touches to the hall before people arrived. Just as Alyson and I arrived upstairs, we found a deputation from Tulsa, consisting of Stephen, Matt, DMac, and Alisha, hurriedly eating tea. P, Grant, Mrs. Colle, and I left together. The dance was scheduled to start at seven o’clock. The night was fine, frosty, with a biting northeast wind.

We were among the first to arrive, wandering a little uncertainly into the concert hall. The overhead lights were dimmed so that the icicle lights on the railings and around the stage, and the Christmas tree on the stage and the deer in the corners, glowed brilliantly. For awhile everyone stood around talking awkwardly. At last, Syneva took the mic and corralled everyone into couples. Stephen asked me to dance, so we all lined up for the Grand March: about sixty couples crowding in the entry area just outside the hall with Syneva and Jacob, the older of her two brothers, at the head. As the lively music struck up, we marched into the hall, following them.

When the music ended, we applauded, standing again in a great circle. Mr. Colle then stepped out, welcomed everyone, and introduced the callers, Syneva, Stefni, and Amanda, and the evening began. We danced through all the dances in succession, with short breaks between every two or three: Scottish Wheel, Virginia Reel, Emma Dance, Mr. Darcy Dance, Waves of Tory, Fairfield Fancy, Spanish Waltz (which rather fell apart while Stefni was calling because the music had some extreme rubato), Dashing White Sergeant (which I danced with P and Alyson, as we’d done at the practice last night), and finally the Posties. The guys who know the dance make Postease into a competition. Philip asked me to be his partner with a ridiculous grin on his face, as he freely acknowledge, so that he could throw me around. He, Matt, and Luke formed a set with another couple, and the dance began. When he heard the music, Matt rolled his eyes, for the pace was absolutely wild. The dance became a race, a competition, a merry free-for-all, with everyone laughing and gasping and twirling and galloping over and under. I was laughing so hard that I was out-of-breath, never mind the fast pace of the dance.

When it ended, everyone was hot, sweaty, and grinning. I stepped outside to cool off in the baltic breeze. Clouds had come over the sky. Back in the warm hall, everyone was taking a half-hour break, eating, drinking, snapping pictures. After the break, the dances began again, and so it went. We danced through all of them (except the Spanish Waltz). People began to leave. I sat up in the chairs, watching the dances and taking pictures: the more I danced, the more blisters formed on my feet.

The last dance of the evening, by request, was the Emma Dance. I had been sitting up in the seats, half-dozing with exhaustion, half-laughing at the last set of Posties, when Matt came up and joined me. He invited me to dance with him, so I did, which was pleasant. We finished the evening as we always do, standing in one great circle, hands joined, singing the Benediction, with applause to follow. Of course people stayed afterward. More photographs, more eating of cookies. RUF picture, saying good-bye to Alisha and Stephen before they returned to Tulsa with DMac, listening to Matt tell teacher horror stories to Rachael, saying good-night to Amanda, and so forth. Someone asked for the music to be turned back on so that another set of Posties could be danced, but Alyson and I both had excruciatingly sore feet, so Philip and Grant drove us back to the Colles’ house.

Alyson and I immediately ducked downstairs to change into comfortable pajamas. Rachael joined us, and we talked about Nickel Creek happily. Back upstairs, I was just getting ready to serve the hot wassail, as instructed by Syneva, when the Colles all came trooping in the back door. After a good deal of bustle and laughter and unpacking of food, we all ended up sitting comfortably in the living room with cups of hot wassail (hot apple and cranberry juice boiled with an orange, cloves, and allspice), cookies, grapes, and cheese and crackers. The whole Colle family (except Josiah, who fell asleep on the floor in the corner), Grant, Matt, Rachael, Philip, Alyson, and me. For some reason we talked about serious things at first, about how the dance had gone, about Syneva’s plans for next year, and so forth, until Syneva joked about how it seemed impossible for us to be silly.

At that point people began to try to tell jokes, which became quite amusing. Matt: “What is black and dangerous and sits in a tree? A crow with a machine gun!” and so on. Some very bad jokes and puns were made over the course of the evening. P began to doze. Mr. Colle went to bed. Syneva took me upstairs to the boys’ room and showed me the incredible map of Middle Earth that she and her brothers had painted during the last week of summer: on one wall, the whole map, and on the other three walls, close-ups, very impressive. We sat around and talked for awhile, the conversation slowly degenerating until at about one o’clock in the morning we all decided to go to bed.

Now Playing: Star Wars V on the VCR. Laura and my mother are giving Angie, the Chinese exchange student who lives next door, an introduction to American culture.

I thought it would be appropriate, considering the season, to think about the names of Christ in Isaiah 23. He is the Wonderful Counselor. Whenever I read that phrase in Isaiah, it puzzles me: I don't think of counselors as being particularly wonderful. What does it mean to be a "wonderful counselor"? In common parlance, "wonderful" would just be "good", someone who gives excellent advice. Aside from its everyday connotations, though, the word carries the idea of amazement, surprise, delight. So Christ is our counselor who is directing us to glory, a glory beyond imagination. His wisdom goes beyond our expectations; He leads us through things for purposes that we cannot understand but that will result in surprise and delight. His guidance is infallible, even if at the moment it does not seem to work out very well. I can trust that whatever direction He gives me is right and will be worked out by Him for glory.

The name Mighty God emphasizes His authority to carry out His counsels. If He were just to guide His people with His wisdom and to plan history through His insight, but not to have the authority to carry out those plans, His wisdom would be diminished. However, as God He has the power and sovereignty to accomplish His plans. When His guidance of me appears to work out to be dark and difficult, or even to have resulted in sin because of my foolishness, there is still room for hope because of His power as God to direct and accomplish everything by His will.

If Christ were merely Mighty God, He would be distant, terrifying, separated from us. Since the Godhead is Everlasting Father, though, His wisdom and sovereignty are carried out in love. As our Father, He knows our needs, our weaknesses, our abilities. As our Father, He provides the gifts we require to live for His glory. As our Father, He disciplines us, in His wisdom teaching and training our faith. We have freedom before Him, though He is the Mighty God, though He is the all-knowing Counselor, to pray to Him, to grieve before Him, to rejoice before Him.

My favorite of all Christ's names is His title, Prince of Peace. The name rolls off the tongue (lovely English translation alliteration). It's easy to say without thinking, to cling to without understanding what exactly it means. I was trying to puzzle out Christ's office as Prince of Peace and so started to think about other titles. Ideally, I suppose, the Prince of somewhere rules over that place and controls it. He is in charge of its affairs, of the goods it produces, of the welfare of its people. Christ rules peace. In order to have peace, He is the authority to whom I must turn, for He is the owner of it, the controller of it. He is in charge of giving peace. On the other hand, though, a prince is someone who hasn't reached maturity yet, someone who is waiting to be crowned, the ascendant to the throne. His rule is not yet complete. So Christ, though He is our Prince of Peace, though He has made full peace between His people and God, in some sense lacks His full glory. In Heaven His office as peacemaker will be fully displayed, for there we will enjoy to the greatest extent the benefits of His peacemaking. On earth we can taste it as we go about our daily lives, but in Heaven He will be King of Peace, His glory fully and completely revealed.

I love the fact that Christ not only makes peace between us and God but between us and ourselves, between us and other people, between us and our circumstances. Looking back on the year as it's gone by, I'm amazed at His faithfulness to protect my faith despite all the skyrockets of joy and depths of sin and sorrow the year has brought. Salvation always comes eventually, even if it's not when I expect, and with salvation, peace. Rest in the knowledge that my sins are completely forgiven; rest in the knowledge that broken relationships are being healed; rest in the knowledge that the confusion of this season of life will be resolved and is being resolved with every passing moment. Beyond that, though, delight: Someday all of this will be dissolved in the glory of His revealed Kingship and the arrival of peace that cannot be disturbed by sin or confusion any more.

May a taste of that peace be with His people now and always.

Pictures from the ball in Ponca City are here.

Now Playing: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack by Howard Shore, Track 3, "The Shadow of the Past".

Last night Nicole and I watched Silence of the Lambs together, probably one of the first R rated films I've seen. I closed my eyes or didn't look at the screen through about a third of it because of the gore: at times the screen resembled something far worse than a medical dissecting room. The language was as might be expected in an R rated film, and all in all I had a rather hard night sleeping.

At the same time, though, the film had one redeeming quality: it depicted, in all of its brutality and hideousness, the depravity the human soul is capable of containing. On Sabbath day I just finished listening to a series of four sermons by Pastor Donnelly about Hell. Not the most cheerful topic in the world, but watching this film after hearing those sermons answered, to some degree, the question as to why God would permit such a horrible place as Hell to exist. If this is the degree of evil of which all human beings are capable, then it is no wonder that God in His perfect beauty, justice, and holiness would be righteous in condemning forever such souls to the torment they have devised for themselves. Truly none of us are worthy to stand before Him.

Providentially, this morning I read Psalm 53 in my quiet time. Once again, I was struck by the pervasiveness of evil in all human beings. If in films and culture we are capable of realizing our own sinfulness to the degree emphasized in Silence of the Lambs, how much more must God Himself, who sees our sin both from a perspective of complete omniscience, so He knows just how far it extends, and also from a perspective of complete purity, which makes it even more disgusting in His sight. Desensitized by the violence we think even more than by the violence we see, our sense of sin cannot be as precise as His.

This makes Christ's work as a whole, particularly His death, even more incredible. One of Pastor Donnelly's points in his concluding sermon was to this effect when it comes to Hell. Hell ought to make us appreciate Christ's work even more, for He took Hell into Himself on the cross, experiencing the anger of God, the degradation of His personality physically and spiritually, the separation from all goodness and grace, that we as sinners deserve. The power of Christ, able to bear this eternal burning hatred against not only one person but against all His people, and then to rise again, shining, not corrupted but even more glorious, is incredible. His value, His beauty, His strength and glory....

Watching this film also makes His life more amazing. It is a wonder to me that He was willing to descend into a world so dark, to be surrounded by creatures in whom the potential for evil was so intensely dangerous, and to love those creatures with such power and intensity. I do not understand how a Being so beautiful, so holy, so perfect could be willing to make His home among creatures whose external sin might not have been fully developed to the point of perversion and murder but whose internal sins were certainly far more horrible to Him.

But such is His glory and grace.

It may seem very easy for me to write all of this sitting comfortably in 15th Steet Coffee Shop with a cup of Earl Grey and a raspberry bar for company, but glancing around me at the other human beings in the shop is a sober reality check. That under the serene faces and quite normalcy lurks this amount of evil reminds me just how blessed we are by His restraining grace, and how much more by the grace of His redemption so that beyond the comparative peace of a December afternoon there is hope for a fullness of joy glorious beyond imagination.

He is truly worthy of praise forever and ever.

True to form, last week of finals: IT SNOWED!

Not what you could genuinely call snow, more like a nasty mixture of ice and sleet, but it's beautifully white on the roofs of the other flats. The grass on the new U is still green, which creates a rather lovely contrast with the white buildings and white... precipitation.

And it's 25 degrees here (roughly -8 Centigrade), so the walk to the gym this morning to run was not particularly enjoyable to say the least. My nose was frozen off.

Now Playing: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, "The Nutcracker", Act I, Scene I, "March".

Tonight Rachel Sr., Crystal, Jenny M., and I went to see The Nutcracker at the Tulsa Performing Arts Centre. Quite a lovely production, though not entirely traditional: they had changed the storyline significantly and cut out a couple of the dances. Nonetheless, it was a lovely production. It was set in 1920s France, and the two main sets were the Opera Garnier and the mirror room at Versailles, both of which made me delighted thanks to last Christmas's happiness. The costumes were lovely, particularly for the girls, of course--long 1920s-style dresses and simple sparkling tiaras, sometimes with single feathers in them, very elegant.

The music for this work is so full of joy that had it been a performance simply of the music alone I would have been happy. Gorgeous lush harp runs in Act 2 in particular. The dancing was elegant, serene, courteous, gracious, full of spectacular lifts and leaps, which seemed to be the strong point of the company.

There was, however, somehow a slight disjunct between the dancing and the music, something that didn't quite mesh properly. Jenny and I agreed that a purely traditional performance would be satisfying to see someday.

It's so windy here. Think Causeway Coast from January to March. The wind thrums in the walls and the floor (our apartment is on the third storey) and rattles in a piece of loose gutter and shakes the windows.

Almost finished with finals. All I have left is an Honors essay and a take-home exam for Philosophy of Art. The Honors paper is as good as done, and the take-home will be finished by Monday at teatime.

More pictures here!

Now Playing: New Song, "Psalms For the King of Glory", Track 6, "I Cried With My Whole Heart: Psalm 119".

Click here to see pictures from the RUF dance last night.

Now Playing: Sufjan Stevens, "Illinoise".

This has been a week of firsts, thanks to Nicole and Rachel Jr. Nicole taught me on Wednesday night after we ate tea in The Hut how to play pool, at which I was laughably bad. On Thursday night, Nicole and Rachel attempted to teach me how to play gin, which I might understand, and rummy, which I almost certainly do not understand, and together they introduced me to the wonders of Freckles frozen custard.

Tonight Tara, Amanda, Rachel Sr., and I watched Get Smart. Popcorn film, ridiculous and (if I may say so) extremely silly. The level of innuendo was rather more than my Victorian sensibilities could handle, but the mockery of James Bond was hilarious.

Almost finished with my senior project, I discovered to my dismay today that my advisor has been ill all week, so she has been completely unable to look over the draft I sent her a couple of weeks ago. I suppose I'll just have to turn it in on Monday and hope that it is acceptable.

The RUF Christmas ball is tomorrow night. Most people in RUF only know how to swing dance, but a few people like to dance English country/Irish dances, so I may be attempting to teach the Waves of Tory and Strip the Willow tomorrow, if I can find music for the dances. Nickel Creek and Flook will help most likely.

High time for some sleep now.

Now Playing: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers soundtrack by Howard Shore, Track 19, "Gollum's Song".

How sad, no white rabbits for me this month.

Was just looking at pictures from the "football dinner" last spring. Two conclusions: Cultural differences make me want to laugh for the awkwardness, and Heaven is going to be wonderful.

I hope it snows tomorrow, just for the fun of it.

Pictures from the Cs' house here.

Now Playing: The Decemberists, "16 Military Wives" from "The Picaresque" on Philip's laptop.

For once the house has been completely full. Our days usually include Philip doing loads of thermodynamics, physics, and statics homework at the living room table, Stephen building sewers for his Roman helots on the computer upstairs, and Keith mucking about with Philip's computer.

Of course the first third of the week, after Keith arrived, was spent "fixing" Philip's computer: Philip and Keith spent most of Wednesday and Thursday attacking the problem, getting frustrated, doing something else, then going back to the computer again. I think that after a lot of jockeying with memory sticks and online downloads they finally managed to uninstall or reinstall or install Linux, and after that, having nothing better to do, they proceeded to install a myriad of add-ons and slick cosmetic changes that make Philip's Dell look like a Mac when booted up. Which is the point, as Keith informed me.

Our house has been sadly cat-less since Mandy left us. Sandy is being given an unprecedented amount of attention. On Wednesday, she chased one of the neighbor's cats all the way down the street into the creek, and returned about an hour later absolutely filthy and very proud of herself. She has since then been given two baths, one of them with my mother's own hair shampoo.

On Wednesday, Laura, Stephen, Keith, my mother, and I spent most of the afternoon raking leaves in the front yard. The south side of the yard was a mat of silver maple leaves, silver and gold, that crunched underfoot like tissue paper. The north side of the yard, where the grass was longer, was harder to rake, but we did our best. It was nearly dark before we finished. Keith and Stephen stacked twenty-two bags under the basketball goal on the driveway.

Thanksgiving was the usual family affair, though Mr. Workman, from church, also joined us. After everyone left in the afternoon, we all went for a walk around San Born Lake--even my parents went with us. Philip led Keith, Laura, and Stephen on a wild goose chase down the side of the dam into the swamp under the old cottonwood trees, but my parents and I walked around the lake on the normal trail. We saw a magnificent red-tailed hawk, a great blue heron trying to fish while a flock of mallard ducks paddled nearby, and a kingfisher. Someone had butchered a deer on the peninsula, the hideousness of a sawn-off leg and its empty rotting rib cage reminding me of the horror of the dead frogs in Perelandra. We stood on the peninsula and waited for the ardent explorers to return--we could hear their voices coming clear across the still water.

Yesterday, my mother and all of us except Philip went out to Grammy's house. We dug up her dead basil plants for her, aromatic brittle stalks crammed into a bin bag. I refilled her bird feeder. Last night all of us except my father went to the Cs' house for a post-Thanksgiving party to which everyone was supposed to bring Thanksgiving leftovers--I'd say that people brought a lot more. Mrs. S brought venison stew, and Bridget had made a peanut butter meringue pie. After people finished eating, we played games. Philip started a poker game with the guys in the living room, playing with chips from another game. The younger girls played a sort of Scrabble while Mrs. C, Mrs. S, and my mother laughed hysterically over Mad Gab. Then Mrs. C decided that she wanted to play Pit, and quite soon an incredibly noisy game of Pit was happening back in the sunroom. It got even noisier when Philip and Laura joined in. The parakeets in their cage on the bookshelf twittered nervously while everyone yelled "One, one one!" or "Three, three, three!" at the tops of their lungs.

I went grocery shopping with my mother and Laura today. The disgusting commercialism of Wal-Mart at Christmastime is enough to make me want to pick up and move to some deserted island in the Pacific, or the coast of Donegal, but I don't think that would be very wise.

Somehow or other I managed to finish almost everything on my list for the week, including a couple of parcels posted, a haircut, birthday presents purchased, cards made, e-mails written, and the like. Also read A Wind in the Door, A Wrinkle in Time, and the first two Harry Potter books. "Helped" my parents choose new glasses frames, too, though I'm not sure I was quite necessary for that job.

Stephen and I baked loads of cookies yesterday, and I baked scones today for Anna and me. Philip and I have been teasing each other non-stop. I suppose it helps him let out steam while he's revising. I'm fairly sure it scandalizes our parents. At some point I guess we'll have to grow up and stop mucking about, but I don't know when the cut-off age is for nonsense.

Oh, yay, "Sons and Daughters". It's about the only happy song The Decemberists have ever written. Rhyming "cinnamon" and "aluminum"...!

See pictures from the last week here.

Now Playing: Some random rap song Keith found on YouTube.

I've been trying to teach Laura how to make paper cranes this afternoon. My mother is baking the turkey for tomorrow, and two fat loaves of challah bread that Laura made earlier are sitting on the dining room table.

Psalm 36, trying to explore the love of God. One way to battle unbelief is to think about His love in concrete ways.

5 Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.
6 Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lord.
7 How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
8 They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
9 For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.

God's love is infinite and overarching. It is a love that is transcendent, superior to any love on earth, while still touching the earth. His love is steadfast, like the mountains, and also like the mountains, in some ways terrifying. C.S. Lewis beautifully describes angels in Perelandra as exemplifying the pure intense charis of God, an intensity resulting from its purity, its sovereignty, its immensity. In some ways this is the redemption of the Romantic idea of the sublime that Burke and Kant talk about: God's love is frightening in its immensity and hugeness, in the fact that it makes us as human beings realize our smallness, our helpless, our inability to love in a way at all comparable.

This love is not without purpose, though. God's love would be terrifying because of its transcendence and sovereignty since we cannot and will not choose to reflect it, but it is channeled into redemption, David says. Not only redemption of human beings, but redemption of creation, "man and beast". His love has chosen to manifest itself sovereignly by flowing through creation instead of judging fallen creation for its inability to reflect that love. C.S. Lewis again writes about the "joy" that happens when the infinite, simply for love, rejects all other possibilities for the one on which His choice has settled. Here that choice is salvation, into which God has amazingly directed all the power of His will.

This makes God's love precious, valuable, weighty. This also makes His love safe, a place of refuge. In this love human beings can find rest and protection, complete security. There is no anger remaining for sins in the past. In the face of His love I can acknowledge my vulnerability and need and find rest.

Not only is His love protecting, but it is satisfying. David speaks of God's love as food and drink, satisfying and refreshing. In Christ nothing else will satisfy or should satisfy. Christ Himself is our abundance, the meal that we eat and drink. This means peace for the future and peace for the present, energy to love those around me.

God's love gives truth, gives direction, gives light. By God's love I can measure all other loves, see all other lights in light of His light. Light also gives freedom from fear: in the light I can confront the things that terrify me and see them for what they are. Since His love is my refuge, I have a safe place from which to confront sin and straight sight with which to confront that sin, to see it for what it is. Then His love gives the energy, the satisfaction, the food and drink, with which to combat that sin.

So I pray this for those I know:

10 Oh, continue your steadfast love to those who know you, and your righteousness to the upright of heart!

Now Playing: Mozart, "Requiem", "Kyrie Eleison".

What have I been doing these past weeks?

Monday, 10 November: Decided that next year I would sleep in a broom closet under someone's stairs, Harry-Potter style.

Tuesday, 11 November: Listened to some ridiculous Australian rap with Nicole and was laughed at by someone for using the word "wellies".

Wednesday, 12 November: Ran into my main lecturer in the gym, which was awkward, and sat through an exceedingly dull Mortar Board meeting.

Thursday, 13 November: Drank a latte made for me by Philip, which kept me awake while I worked on my senior project.

Friday, 14 November: Went to an international fair with Rachel at which Europe was sadly underrepresented, and then watched Harry Potter with a constantly-changing assortment of people in Nicole's apartment even though Nicole herself wasn't there most of the time.

Over that weekend, I talked to Catherine on the phone, volunteered at an international festival for kids where I got to help out in the booth for Scotland, and was visited by Sarah, Laura, and Anna, who crashed our apartment and helped Rachel and me eat up whole bags of sweets while watching Superman Returns.

Monday, 17 November: Was invited by a professor to give a lecture on Old English poetry next year if I'm still in Tulsa, which would be so much fun!

Tuesday, 18 November: Attempted with varying degrees of success to be in five places at once, including tea with Crystal, a fancy shmancy cocktail reception in the library, a birthday party for Nicole, an editors' meeting for Stylus, and RUF.

Wednesday, 19 November: Went to tea at Joanna's apartment and worked on senior project all evening after that.

Thursday, 20 November: Made snowflakes with Crystal, Alyson, and Rachel after Bible study tonight! We covered our apartment floor with tiny snippets of paper and hung the beautiful results all over the ceiling.

Friday, 21 November: Went to a performance of Mozart's "Requiem" with my mother, Laura, Tara, Nicole, Rachel, and Amy in Trinity Episcopal Church downtown, and was overwhelmed by its absolute beauty.

Saturday, 22 November: Spent all morning working on a community garden with other RUFfians, and then spent all afternoon cleaning our apartment and packing so that Philip and I could be back in Stillwater in time for tea.

And that's about the sum of my life for the past two weeks.

Today we had to put one of our cats down.... Not exactly the best way to start Thanksgiving break. She was my favorite of our pets, too, so I have to admit that I'll miss her (N.B., "her", not "it", which might admittedly be rather ridiculous to the sensible world).

Think of it as one more tiny piece of delight taken away, and one small token of the hideousness of the Fall, our sin wrecking even the helpless creation.

More serious stuff some other time. I'm away to sleep.

Now Playing: Handel, "Messiah", "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth".

A sense of undeserving makes receiving the gladness of others a powerful means of grace.

Yesterday I was eating breakfast, and Rachel was heading out the door to the gym, when my mobile rang: it was Emmaline, to my delight. I was treated to an excellent half-hour of drinking good tea and talking to her while she was on the train out of Belfast, at least until her service gave out. We chatted away until her service cut out (the first time), and when she rang me back, I was justly slagged off for having assumed that after only ten minutes she was already to Culleybackey when five minutes before she'd been buying her ticket from someone near City Central.

For her birthday treat Saturday afternoon, I took Crystal to the Gilcrease Museum to see the Ansel Adams exhibit. We spent about three hours there, until the museum closed, meandering through endless rooms of black-and-white photographs. Like the afternoon outside, intense, sharply defined beauty, overwhelming in its powerful detail.

Afterward, Crystal, Rachel, and I ate tea in The Hut. Rachel left to study in the library then, but Crystal and I went back to our apartment. We were talking about Seneca when my mobile rang: Emmaline again. Listening to my accent change when I greeted Emmaline, Crystal glanced at me and laughed, and Emmaline on the other end slagged me off. I was regaled with accounts of pranks happening inRenwick and plans for another Thanksgiving dinner over the course of our conversation.

Crystal left, and I said good-night to Emmaline at half seven, when Stephen and I had agreed to meet to go to the Signature Symphony concert for which Alisha had reserved tickets. They playedVivaldi's "Four Seasons" tonight, alternating with Piazzolla's "Four Seasons", an Argentinean version. Equally beautiful pieces, Vivaldi's irrepressible exuberance and lyricism on one hand and Piazzolla's exotic tango rhythms and eerie quotations from Vivaldi on the other. The violin technique was amazing.

Today I went back to Stillwater for church: was amused by Renee babbling during Sabbath school, was attacked by Christa after Sabbath school (she wanted to know where Rachel Sr. was), was nearly strangled by Laura, and was given a much-needed talking-to from wise Katie during lunch. In second service we prayed U.K. style, in small circles of five or six all in the one room, which I like far more than our normal practice of praying as one huge congregational group. Laughed with Stephanie at her crazy children, who were running around everywhere without shoes after second service, and spent the afternoon with my parents before driving back to uni.

As my parents pointed out, we are monuments to God's excellence: He shows His power by subduing His enemies and His grace by making them His children.

Even when the mental knowledge of this is questioned and the heart's emotions evaporate, that truth is still true because He is still the same, and His possession of us never ends because He never ends.

Now Playing: Felix Mendelssohn, "Symphony No. 4 in A Major," "Con Moto Moderato".

I've been collecting words this week. I was reading Walter Benjamin for Honors and senior project, as well as talking to Rachel and Alyson, the combination of which resulted in these fine specimens.

Sesquipedalian: Describing words a foot-and-a-half long, from Horace. As Rachel pointed out, this word is self-defeating. You can't accuse someone of being sesquipedalian without being it yourself.

Chthonic: Underground. It makes me think of submarine things that have become subterranean, round ammonite fossils and tiny limestone shells.

Phantasmagoria: An exhibition of optical illusions chiefly produced by a magic lantern. Not even the Oxford English Dictionary knows where it comes from, so the word itself is phantasmagoric, a combination of unusual or strange elements. The first part is Greek, but the second part might be Greek or French or the invention of someone wanting a word that sounded fantastic.

I was reading Perelandra today while I was practicing my flute (yes, the two go together, which is why I'm an English major and not a music major). As the Green Woman says at the beginning, stepping out of time and looking at oneself from the Alongside is rather a strange habit that we earth-dwellers have. I seem to have had trouble doing it these last few months, at least with the quiet calm contemplative attitude, too busy either worrying or working to step out for a moment and consider.

We had an absolutely glorious thunderstorm in Tulsa Wednesday night. When I emerged from working in the library at five o'clock in the evening, a huge cloud was rearing along the western horizon between the sky and the setting sun, its edge gilded white and gold from the sun behind it. The wind was swirling round the corner of the library. For some reason, because of the way the library is built, it always seems to be blowing up at you from the doorway, which is on a level below the ground.

Then when Nicole and I left The Hut a couple of hours later, the pavement was damp and the air moist. We were standing outside her apartment talking when a blue flash of lightning lit the sky, and we hightailed it to our separate apartments. Rachel and I spent the rest of the evening studying in our apartment and watching the storm as it came in two separate "events". The second one was more violent and prolonged than the first. Cascades of rain blew over the roofs of the apartments; the streetlamps outside rocked with the force of the wind; lightning staggered the darkness.

The next day, it was crisp and clear and very windy from the northwest, and ever since then it's been blowing colder and colder, stripping the leaves from the trees against a vivid blue sky. Intense sunshine dazzles through what leaves are left.

Today I had an extra flute lesson, the first of a set of extra lessons that will be happening on Friday mornings. Bach and Vivaldi are both at the stage where they require mostly large-scale practice, so today the professor and I started on Blavet. Fussy French music, like Versailles, all ornament with very little underneath. Whenever I play the crisp shining little trills and appoggiaturas, I see those gardens and gilded facades.

Now Playing: Fox News on Nicole's TV.

You can't escape it even here.

Somehow, this is indicative, though: Fox is finally getting around to announcing the results of the first states with polls to close, and Rachel and Nicole have both dozed off on the battered green leather sofas.

So much talk. Pastor preached an excellent sermon on Sabbath day about how our hope is not in political candidates. Neither one of these boys seems to do what is exactly right, and in my young idealistic mind that's cause enough for voter disillusionment.

It's been interesting to hear professors talk about this election. They're all voting for Obama, of course. We talked in Honors today about the use of the media to frame this election. Media announcers make fanfare and spectacle out of something that happens quietly in tiny booths, individual by individual: fair enough assessment. It's interesting to think about how voting is a public spectacle just like sporting events or parades.

Meanwhile, though, the demands of the body have to be met. Rachel and I are away for our tea.

Now Playing: Harry Gregson-Williams, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian soundtrack, "Raid on the Castle".

Epic music for a day like this.

My alarm went off at seven this morning. Usually that would mean that I turn it off and curl up for another half-hour, or at least that's been the pattern for the past few weeks, rather shameful laziness, but now that I don't have a certain person's mobile phone ringing every five minutes to wake me up in the morning, what am I supposed to do?

Today was registration day for seniors. I had less than the usual fun with TU's wonderful online registration system. Despite the fact that the system told me, after I'd asked to enroll in certain courses, that I didn't have the authority to access the next page, when I went back and tried to register again, it mysteriously decided that I had enrolled in those courses after all. This time there were only two courses, Advanced Poetry and Beginning French I, which it wouldn't let me register, resulting in only one of the usual stiffly polite e-mails to the advisor of Arts and Sciences, asking her nicely please to register me in those two sections.

So I am now enrolled in flute lessons, of course, Advanced Poetry, which happens most of Wednesday afternoons, Beginning French I, at the lovely time of nine o'clock MWF mornings, Honors, and a random history class, "Imperial Rome and Its Legacy", taught by TU's new history professor. Wonder of wonders, the department actually decided to hire a medievalist for a change! He's teaching two courses this semester, and I've registered in this upper division course.

After that fun was over, I dressed and ate my breakfast while looking through all the pictures I (and Emmaline and Rachel) had taken last year in order to pull some of them for the presentation I was supposed to do for the study abroad office today. My advisor, Dr. S, is teaching a "freshman experience" course, which supposedly introduces first year students to the wonderful life of the university. Professors always seem to be at a loss to make these courses interesting, and Dr. S's solution this week was to ask me and one of the peer advisors at the study abroad office, Alex, to come in and give a presentation about study abroad.

Alex studied abroad in China, so his stories are somewhat more exotic than mine, involving mountain-surfing and herds of yak. He and I spent a couple of hours in the study abroad office this morning putting our slideshow together and talking about what we wanted to say--or rather, just talking, since Alex, being an exceedingly friendly chap, loves talking to people. We laughed at each other's pictures. There was one of him on a narrow little street in China, standing against a wall, with everyone on the street staring at him: he's a lanky, fair-skinned, bearded, bright ginger chap in a street full of short, dark Chinese.

The study abroad office was quiet this morning. Ms. B, the secretary, discovered in the course of the morning that I haven't been getting paid for most of the work I've been doing, so after Alex and I finished, she sent me scurrying back to my apartment to pick up my planner, where I've written down all my hours, and to get that sorted out. I had just enough time to practice my flute for half-an-hour before Dr. S's class was supposed to start at noon.

Dr. S's class was upstairs in the English building, in the one classroom in the English building, where all English classes are held (at least it seems that way sometimes). One of the dullest rooms I've ever been in, except that it has windows on two sides running all the way round. Today the windows gave a view of an exceptionally lovely autumn noon, sunshine and golden leaves spiraling against the glass.

Alex gave his presentation about the basics of applying for study abroad first, and then we did our dual slideshow. We basically just told random stories the whole time--Paris, London, Shanghai, Pakistan, cows, yaks, abbeys in cow pastures, road trips across Mongolia, and various other odds and ends came into the presentation at different times. (See my pictures from the slideshow here.)

Class ended at ten to one. After class, I went down the hall with Dr. S to her office, and we spent half-an-hour talking about senior project. We had a good discussion, though: I'd turned in a paper last week for senior project, and she'd given me the dreaded A- on it (I abominate A-'s, in the immortal words of Josh K.) because the ideas weren't clear enough. When she asked me what I meant to say, and I told her, of course it sounded fine (then!), and we spent awhile honing it, coming up with an outline, etc. I left with her cheerful "Take care," ringing in my ears.

I went over to ACAC and bought a salad for lunch. Philip was working at Carrello's with Amy. Said hello to them, then went to PHIL 2113 at two o'clock. Today the professor finally decided to hand out a pop quiz on the fearsome Kant. I had done the readings, really and truly, but it had been two weeks ago, when the readings were due. So today I made a less-than-desirable score on the quiz.

After PHIL 2113, I had an hour-long flute lesson. I played through the entire Bach sonata for Professor R today, like running a marathon. The result was that I need to spend more time with my best friend, the metronome, making sure that the appoggiaturas are exactly on the beat. I played the Vivaldi for him, too. He'd brought a photocopy of a cleaner edition than the Rampal edition, which is the one I own. Rampal had removed at least ten bars of Vivaldi's original music from the flute part, so now I have a little bit of new music to weave into the piece, but I'm glad because it makes the concerto much more seamless, less chopped into sections.

When my lesson was over, I walked back to ACAC to buy milk. Tiny round leaves were swirling off the oak trees in the plaza between the library and the chapel, and the sun was setting fast behind the downtown skyline. Leaves falling today, far faster than last week. The trees are resplendent, golds and reds, and all their glory whirling away on the south wind.

In ACAC, Jenny M. was just getting off work at Carrello's, and Amy was working there. I perched on the edge of a table with Jenny and chatted with she and Amy about life. Jenny and I walked over to Mayo together. It was good to be able to spend time with her, even if it was just a walk across campus.

Just after she left, Rachel came back from the gym. I went to the caf to pick up some tea, a sandwich in a box. I ate it sitting at the table in our dining room with Rachel. We talked about maths classes, topology, her NSF fellowship essays, Dr. G's freshman Honors class, memories of that.... I read more of Out of the Silent Planet, and when she left for a meeting, I finally settled down at my desk to work on senior project.

At half eight I walked to the gym to run. In the gym, one of the basketball courts was occupied by a basketball game, another was occupied by volleyball, and the middle court was occupied by two people playing badminton. Quick graceful movements, shuttlecock flying, remembering walking nights up the road with Emmaline, Charlotte, Sarah W., and Andy L.

I ran and listened to my father's third lesson on James about treating everyone equally, as we have been treated by Christ, with grace. While I was running on the treadmill on the first floor, Philip was lifting weights in front of the mirrors nearby, pulling hideous grimaces every time his muscles tightened.

I rowed for ten minutes, then went downstairs to the atrium to meet the girls for prayer. None of them were there yet, but Philip was, lounging in an armchair, watching a football game on the enormous TV. We chatted until Alyson arrived, and then Rachel after her. Philip said good-night. The three of us sat at a table and talked about school. We shared prayer requests, for ourselves and for others, for the Knorrs, for the elections tomorrow.

Rachel and I walked back to our apartment after prayer. The evening was chilly with a strong southeast wind. A rich smoke-smell hung on the air.

Rachel is making tea for herself. I'm listening to the end of the Prince Caspian soundtrack, that Switchfoot song, "This Is Home". I need to take a shower.

Have your revenge, o hapless helots.

Just wait until December.

And for those of you who didn't,

I dreamed about WHITE RABBITS last night.

A few pictures here.

Now Playing: The Decemberists, "Picaresque", "The Engine Driver".

The last day of October. I've spent most of the evening working on senior project and have six pages of unpolished poetry-prose thus far.

Psalm 27.

"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall.
Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.
One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple.
For He will hide me in His shelter in the day of trouble; He will conceal me under the cover of His tent; He will lift me high upon a rock.
And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the Lord.
Hear, o Lord, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me!
You have said, 'Seek my face. My heart says to you, 'Your face, Lord, do I seek.'
Hide not your face from me. Turn not your servant away in anger, o you who have been my help. Cast me not off; forsake me not, o God of my salvation!
For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in.
Teach me your way, o Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies.
Give me not up to the will of my adversaries; for false witnesses have risen against me, and they breathe out violence.
I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!
Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!"

God is light who dispels fear, who shows reality, who brings warmth and peace, who enables creativity and fruitfulness. No peace outside of this light. Not only do we not know ourselves, but we don't know others, stumbling around a dark room.

The safety and peace for which David prays are for the purpose of worshiping and serving God. David does not seek God's favor for his own sake merely but for his sake in God's glory. One of the most amazing truths about salvation is that Christ has chosen to make our happiness His glory.

"We must value God's power so highly that it puts to flight all fear," says Calvin, even fear from our consciences, Romans 8, especially vs. 34. The fear of God enables more trust of Him. The more powerful and sovereign He is, the more understanding comes of His authority to forgive sin completely, and the more weight the assessment of justification has.

In verse 12, the believer can ventriloquize Christ's words. The witnesses against Him were false because He was perfect; the witnesses against the believer are false because the believer is perfect, too--in Him. Pastor Jones preached at RUF this week to the effect that the believer is so closely united to Christ physically and covenantally that it is as though we ourselves knelt in the Garden and wept tears of blood in obedience.

That sounds like blasphemy to me because I know I'm not capable of that obedience. The Gospel knows I'm not capable of that obedience, too--which is why the union is so close. Just enjoy it.

The union can't always be sensed, though. God commands His people to seek Him, but He enables that seeking, too. He is the God of salvation: His love is irresistible and unchanging. By His character He must draw His people to Himself.

Someday that will happen eternally. The feeling of lostness is no wonder. If we are united to Christ physically, we are also disembodied with Him physically--our bodies, with His, are scattered all over time and space, awaiting the final union, the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I get impatient for that.

"Wait for the Lord."

Now Playing: Brahms, Requiem, Track 2, "Behold, All Flesh Is As The Grass."

Just a post to let you all know that I'm not actually dead yet.

Highlights from this week.

On Monday evening, Rachel Jr. and Tara both came over for tea at our apartment. Tara brought over this enormous wedge of Dutch cheese to share. She hung out in our apartment until it was time for prayer, while Rachel Sr. and I both studied industriously.

Tuesday, I permitted myself to become far too engrossed in my senior project. Rachel Sr. was out all evening, so I ended up reading one of the translations of Beowulf that I'm studying while I ate my tea, and then settling from that into a deep daze for at least forty-five minutes until I came out of my stupor in time to go to RUF.

Wednesday was spectacularly cold and wet. In the morning it stormed riotously, and not only was my umbrella broken, but my jacket wasn't waterproof, so by the time I got to the library and to lectures, I was almost soaked to the skin. That evening, though, Nicole came over, and in the process of the evening, with much labor and travail, I managed to write a decent five-page summary of my senior project, thanks also to the help of The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack.

On Thursday, instead of doing Bible study in the evening, my small group, minus Rachel Jr., who was at a concert, went to see TU's production of Hamlet. It was quite excellent. The acting was really good. Karl, one of our RUF friends, wrote the incidental music. Rachel Sr., of course, was all ablaze with excitement afterward. Russ, an acquaintance from freshman Honors classes, who'd somehow joined our group in the course of the evening, made fun of Rachel Sr. and me: he calls us "Team Study" and "Team Good Grades" whenever he sees us, which makes both of us uncomfortable, for Rachel blushes and I laugh at him.

Friday evening, Kevin and Holly invited Rachel Sr. and me to their apartment for tea, which was very relaxing, a good break between study sessions for the GRE. We played Taboo (American version of Articulate), and Kevin loaned me a Decemberists CD that I'd not heard before.

Saturday was THE DAY OF RECKONING: i.e., the day I buried myself in a random office complex in south Tulsa at a testing centre to take the GRE. It was alright. Laura, Anna, and Sarah were supposed to visit from Stillwater this evening, but they couldn't come, so Rachel Sr. and I spent a quiet evening at Nicole's apartment with Nicole and Tara, watching the Emma Thompson Sense and Sensibility film.

Today I went to Christ Pres for church in the morning. Afterward, Tara and I took sandwiches to Woodward Park and ate a picnic there in the rose garden. The day was gorgeous. A brisk north breeze was roaring through the oak trees at the top of the hill just to our right, sweeping the smells of the roses to us and scattering our napkins across the little grassy plot where we were sitting on our jackets in the sunshine.

Now Playing: Football game at the stadium next door.

I'm so tired that I'm about to fall asleep at my desk, but I'll attempt to be coherent.

Today was a good day up until the point at which, just now, I looked at my planner and realized that I take the GRE next Saturday, a five-page paper for senior project is due the following Monday, and a MUS 3253 trimester exam is that Tuesday, followed in short order the next Monday by a letter of response to a peer's senior project paper, and the Monday after that by ten pages from the senior project itself.

Needless to say, I'm going to go into hibernation for a long time....

Anyway.

So today Rachel and I both took a little bit more time in the morning than usual, which was pleasant. I sat down and studied for the GRE while I ate my breakfast. Then I did my devotions.

Rachel left at nine o'clock for an economics research colloquium. At ten o'clock I walked over to Nicole's apartment. She's having an RUF party tonight, instigated by a combination of Tara, German class, and desire to make currywurst (bratwurst with extra spices, I gather), and the two of us were to spend the day getting ready for it.

Nicole and I, both tired, took her Hummer to Reasor's on 15th Street. It was crowded with the usual Saturday morning rush. We bought the sausages she wanted, and I bought things to make cookies with. Then we went back to campus, put away our shopping, and went to the caf to pick up lunch to go. We ate in Nicole's apartment.

After we finished lunch, Nicole did an amazingly fast cleanup of her apartment before she and I went shopping for other things. We drove down to Target on Yale and shopped for winter clothes. Then we drove down to the Promenade Mall and walked through JC Penney to find a casserole dish for Katie. It reminded me so much of Debenham's down in city centre in Belfast, all the counters of perfumes and jewelry. Nicole managed to find something for Katie, and after she did, we wandered around in the mall for a little while.

We found a funny wee shop that was like a magician's box. The ceiling was hung with paper Japanese lanterns. Nicole had been looking for Eastern-style silk trousers and found a rack of them, shimmering bright colors and floral patterns. While she looked, I wandered, in awe, delighted by all the pretty things. There were beaded earrings, canes, bags, scarves, saris, all sorts of random colorful things. By the door there was a whole stand full of masks, all feather and glitter and gaudy paint. Nicole bought a green-and-copper one to go with her silk trousers. I tried on a baby-blue-and-gold mask shaped like a cat's face. There were plumes and feathers and all sorts of strange fantastic combinations of shapes and colors.

After a couple of other stops, on campus, I went to my apartment to put things away before hauling the cookie-baking materials back over to Nicole's apartment. She had already started to grill the sausages on a George Foreman grill, which sat on the kitchen counter and spouted grease. I whipped up the cookies and put them in the oven. The apartment was hot and smoky with the grill and the oven running at once. Jacob, his roommate, and Nicole's parents all arrived. Then RUFfians started to show up: Amy and Rachel Jr., Laura, Hannah, Holly and Kevin, Jenny M., Rachel Sr., Bob, the Tyree brothers, Brandon, James and Eleanor, Tara.... The apartment was full of people sitting in groups, at the small dining room table, on the floor in the bay window, on the old battered green leather couches around the TV. I finally ended up curled pleasantly on the floor behind the sofa with Tara, the two of us talking quietly underneath everyone else's banter.

Tonight's TU football game started at seven o'clock. The sun was already going down and the evening growing cold. People began to leave. Tara, Rachel Sr., and I were among the last to leave. Tara had ridden her bike, so Rachel and I said good-bye to her and walked back to her apartment. I spent an hour drinking tea and working on a GRE maths practice problem set before hurrying over to ACAC at eight o'clock to study with one of the guys from PHIL 2113 for our midterm on Monday. He's Lithuanian, I think, and on the track team. He genuinely seems to want to learn the material and do well.

We studied for an hour, and then I walked back to the apartment. The night was noisy. Halftime was just finishing in the stadium. The noise of the music blaring over the PA system and the announcer's voice bounced off the buildings, disorienting, echoing between the library and the chapel. Crowds of people were moving up and down the footpaths. The lights of the stadium blazed on the southeast side of campus, but to the northwest, a few stars were shining clear and cold in the black sky. I longed to get away somewhere quiet.

So tired. In the apartment, Rachel was sitting on the sofa researching amendments to the Colorado constitution so that she can fill out her absentee ballot. I sat down at my desk, too tired to study until the moment mentioned at the beginning of this post. I had thought my schedule was crowded--until now. Let's hope I make it through to Thanksgiving....

"Lift up your heads, o ye gates!
Lift them high, ye ancient doors,
That the King of glory may enter in!
Who is the King of glory?
The Lord strong and mighty,
The Lord mighty in battle."

Now Playing: Mozart, "Requiem in D Minor", "Agnus Dei".

Rachel just got off her mobile and is glowing, having solved a problem with a jump bidding spreadsheet with her father's help.

Today I sat through an hour-and-a-half seminar about applying to graduate school with Rachel and about fifty other students. One comforting thing was that I already knew a lot of the things that were said. It's always mildly reassuring to realize that one is not quite clueless, though that sensation was just barely enough to restrain the usual panic I begin to feel when embarking on any such venture.

It was more encouraging, though, to realize while I listened to the Dean speak that I am actually looking forward to this opportunity. It would be so pleasant to be able to set aside Philosophy of Art, Honors, and even Music History to be able to focus completely on senior project right now. Dr. S lent me a lovely book about book history a couple of weeks ago, full of samples of manuscript and print from Roman times to the present. Unlike some scholarly historical books, this one actually takes an unashamed stance for the idea that form and meaning are intimately united and that the form does convey a certain specific range of meaning. Refreshing, and a beautiful read.

Considering graduate school, it's tempting to start to get bent out of shape. In fact, that's usually what happens as soon as I start contemplating the reams of paper that will have to be consumed to fill out applications and all the stiffly polite e-mails that will have to be sent to professors and advisors.

I was wondering tonight why I ought to bother with this anyway. I've wondered about it many times. I've vented on here so much about how much I've hated certain English classes I've been in. Perhaps it would be better to quit and find a nice quiet sinecure somewhere to keep me occupied. I find, though, that the job market is my refuge, a place of escape whenever I decide that graduate school is just too hard.

Tonight as I was walking back from the gym, thinking about these things, I was reminded of Psalm 23, "He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake." Whenever I contemplate the truth in the verse from Galatians 2, which God brought to my attention this past Sabbath morning as I was skimming through the book, where Paul speaks of Christ as "He who loved me and gave Himself for me", I am motivated to seek this goal as a way to reflect that glory. Truth and beauty, and the Word made flesh.

I certainly won't attain it on my own: the fear and lack of skill and opportunity that are natural to this nature would be more than enough to keep me back. But as Rachel reminded me wisely, desire, aptitude, and opportunity are gifts of God, and when those three come together, they often demonstrate His guidance.

Last night I was talking with Elizabeth on the phone and realized, with a sort of silly blinking amazement, that life has been rather dreadful lately. All sorts of pieces that I thought were fairly stable have come apart; the future is uncertain; assumptions that I had made are being proved wrong, and usually because of sin. Sin is unpleasant to have to deal with, and even more unpleasant is the realization that this disgusting sin nature actually likes sin and prefers to sit and enjoy it, no matter how painful it is. One has to be hauled kicking and screaming away from that.

Away from that, and towards something else. Learning lessons over again, perhaps. Last March in Ballyclabber I heard a sermon on Psalm 46 and was reminded of it tonight. Christ is not named Prince of Peace for nothing. Even further back, there was a moment when Psalm 84, "Blessed is the man who trusts in you," overwhelmed my mind with a sense of the Lord's love. Repentance and recognition of God's grace makes that blessing real. Since some hideous days, things in outside "life" have actually gotten worse, but things in inside "life" have somehow curled up into a childish complacency.

I certainly don't believe it enough, but God is sovereign, loves us, and gave Himself for us. It's odd to find oneself clinging to that with a sort of resignation: "Oh, look, everything is way too much for me to carry. Well, I guess you can have it, then." It's really ridiculous in a black way how much ugliness has to happen before that resignation and repentance can begin.

One thing for which I am very thankful: I am not supposed to be Christ. Pastor O'Dowd preached last night on Ephesians 2, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you...." I had always thought the "fear and trembling" bit meant fear and trembling that I would somehow not do something God had foreordained for me to do, and that it would lose me the richness of the reward. But that's again ridiculous. The fear and trembling is that people would think we're able to do this on our own, without God who works in us and Christ who "became obedient to the point of death".

The Gospel doesn't expect us to be perfect; in fact, it expects us not to be perfect--so that Christ can be perfect and forgive us. Sin keeps people from mistaking me for Him. I want to glory in my perfection; I ought to glory in my imperfection, and the fact that Christ keeps loving me anyway, despite my stark blindness and insistent refusal to believe any of this.

Well, it's tomorrow now. Bach's "Passacaille and Fugue" has just ended, and on that note (haha, pun--Asher was making dreadful musical ones in RUF last night) I shall go to sleep.

Now Playing: Chris Thile, "Stealing Second." Track 1, "Ah, Spring".

Last night, Nicole, Katie, Rachel, and I went to the Tulsa Opera to see La Boheme. Somehow, the apartment complex had managed to buy tickets so that people from the apartments could attend the performance for free.

At about a quarter past six, Rachel and I, dressed and brushed, scurried over to Nicole's apartment. She and Katie were there, thoroughly dressed up. Nicole had on a pair of the most awesome (and uncomfortable-looking) sandals I've ever seen. We clambered into her Hummer and drove downtown. The evening sun was just above the horizon, striking directly into our eyes as we crossed the highway and turned down onto the surface roads, low bumpy streets between old buildings. The downtown area has suffered economically for years. Many of the old shops and warehouses on the fringe of the area are empty. We went past McNellie's, the Irish bar, and past the Blue Dome district, an artsy area that has refurbished and used several of the more unusual old buildings.

We parked in a lot near the PAC, right downtown. The PAC is an enormous cream-colored concrete building, right in the heart of the downtown area, surrounded by skyscrapers, with the green steeples of churches down the street. The sun was still far enough above the horizon to strike down over the faces of the skyscrapers looming over us, flashing on endless rows of plate glass windows, glowing in the fabric of the Stars and Stripes waving on the roof of a building across the street.

Inside the PAC, we were welcomed by rows of well-groomed ushers in yellow jackets. We had no trouble getting tickets, so we stood around for the hour or so until the performance started. Nicole and Katie ordered champagne from the bar. The lobby quickly began to fill with people. Most of the opera-goers seemed to be wealthy older people, very well dressed, though there were a few younger adults with children, and of course a large contingent from the apartments (free anything tends to draw students, whether they like the free stuff or not). Grant came, and Crystal with Kyle, and several other people I recognized, many of them voice students from the music department.

We all stood around in the lobby, talking, our small circle being compressed into a very tight knot by the press of the crowd. Overhead, a big glass-and-metal sculpture sparkled in the open air between us and the balcony of the second level. Katie told us a story about the artist who'd made that particular sculpture. We just stood and chatted until a quarter past seven, when they opened the house doors and began to seat people. Our seats were, of course, in the "nosebleed" section, so we had to climb endless flights of stairs to reach them. Katie, Nicole, Rachel, and I had seats together. There was a full empty row off to one side, though, so at intermission we moved over there and sat with Grant, Crystal, and Kyle.

At half seven, the lights went down and the crowd went silent. In the pit, the orchestra thundered their feet on the floor to applaud the conductor, and the audience applauded. Then the music began, the curtain went up, and the performance began.

La Boheme is by Puccini, an opera about a community of artists struggling to survive in 19th century Paris. The story is basically a brief, tragic little love story. Peculiarly enough, though all the characters are French, the opera is in Italian, which was slightly disappointing to me (hearing someone speak French always reminds me now of Christmas in Paris and of Emmaline and Catherine chattering away in French on our way to city centre one afternoon in the spring).

I'm not a huge fan of opera, having never been to one before, but somehow this opera managed to poke fun of itself while still being sympathetic to its characters. The opening scene, where four of the artists are talking in their garrett, is absolutely hilarious, and Rachel kept cracking up beside me. The music was beautiful--the orchestra and singers did a magnificent job. As Nicole commented during one of the intermissions, "It's one thing to hear them sing on a CD. You kind of say, 'Oh, yeah, that's neat,' but when you actually watch them producing those notes for real...!" It was pretty amazing to see what the singers were capable of. My flute professor actually plays for the Tulsa Opera and the Ballet, so it was fun to get to see him perform.

The sets were lavish, beautifully painted and decorated. Since it was a story about poverty, the costumes weren't necessarily that spectacular, though the silly rich diva girl, Musetta, had some pretty amazing dresses now and then. The music was the best part, though, of course.

So I enjoyed it. I had been so tired this afternoon that I'd thought I wouldn't go, but I was glad I did. Afterwards, we applauded the singers and the orchestra thoroughly. Then we sat in our seats and talked until one of the ushers politely asked us to move on so that they could lock up the house. We moved out onto the balcony and were again asked to move, so we went downstairs. Everyone was pouring outside into the chilly night. Overhead, the skyscrapers glowed like enormous ice crystals, green and blue, lights striking up their mammoth flanks.

Nicole, Rachel, and I went back to TU. Grant and Katie went out together. Back on campus, we went to ACAC and bought smoothies at the Hut. We parted ways to change clothes, but Rachel and I went over to Nicole's apartment after we were more comfortably dressed. Rachel Jr., Amy, and their sister Rebecca were watching Leatherheads, the three of them tumbled snugly together on the sofa. I'd brought over the remains of Tara's birthday cake, which Nicole and I served together to anyone who wanted it. Then Nicole, Rachel, and I settled down to watch the film, too.

I nearly fell asleep. Both Rachels actually did fall asleep. The film ended at a quarter to one. Rachel and I said good-night, went back to our apartment, and went to bed.

pictures

See pictures of campus here.

Now Playing: Flook, "Haven". Track 1, "The Tortoise And The Hare".

Tortoise and Achilles, if you ask me: read Godel, Escher, Bach, Emmaline. Or don't read it but look at all the cool Escher sketches.

These days are interesting. If I permit myself, I shall begin to philosophize, and we all know how fun that is.

Our apartment was chilly this morning, but bright sunshine was streaming through the eastern windows. Yesterday was as cloudy and cold as one could wish, but today the weather had swung back to being gloriously fair. October, magnificent, so stunningly beautiful that it is frightening, awesome, remote, the year in its fullness receding to a majestic splendor.

I wrote some rapid e-mail and Facebook answers, then walked over to the chapel. In the main sanctuary, people were setting up for an event later in the day, so I went into the small prayer chapel and shut the heavy doors behind me. The prayer chapel was dim and cool. For the first time in my life, I knelt on one of the red velvet kneelers in front of the great stained-glass window where an angel with golden wings and a white robe kneels on a blue field. As I knelt in prayer, the sun rose slowly behind the window, filling the chunks of glass with color, striking sparklingly off the odd chips and edges, dazzling.

After the hour, I walked back to the apartment, and spent an hour or so working on senior project. Then, at half eleven, Rachel Sr. and I met outside the caf. We picked up sandwiches to go and drove to Woodward Park to eat them. We sat on a wall in the sunshine by the rose gardens. A fat squirrel crept along the wall behind me to within less than six inches of my arm, and even when I waved my hand at it, it refused to go away. Rachel laughed that it looked as though I was trying to cast a spell on it because I kept flicking my hand at it, and it kept scampering back, then creeping closer.

When we finished eating, we walked among the rose beds for awhile. Then we crossed the lane and walked down the hill under the oak trees. We walked along the muddy paths on the hillside between the azalea bushes. Flat ponds at the bottom of the hill, marshy places full of reeds, shimmered under the shadow of the trees where the sun struck them.

I drove Rachel back to campus in time for her one o'clock class. I went to Tyrrell and practiced hard, Bach and Vivaldi. At two o'clock, I went to PHIL 2113. When the madness ended, I walked over to Zink and met with Dr. J. Since Dr. G is gone, Dr. J is the only poetry professor at TU. He resides in a dim office in a back nook in Zink, one of those offices lined with books, with a slouchy old couch on one side and a desk stacked with papers under the windows across from the door. He always reminds me of an odd combination of hippie and cowboy, somehow, black jeans and suit jacket and trim greying beard. Very friendly. We talked about poetry and translation theory and all the wild and woolly ins and outs of paratextuality and intertextuality and Genette and Susan Howe and Beowulf. He also gave me some advice about applying to graduate schools.

As usual, upon stepping out of Zink, I felt a desperate urge to clear my head of all the nonsense it had absorbed while I'd been in the building. I love English and talking about English, but Englishy-ness also does my head in, no right angles or ups and downs but all loops and curves. Going dizzy by watching a kite fly for too long. So I walked around campus and took pictures of the buildings basking in the late afternoon sunshine. Then I went over to ACAC to meet Nicole for tea at five o'clock.

I was early, so I stood by Carrello's, the wee coffee shop, and chatted with Philip. We were fairly deep for awhile, but then one of his coworkers, busy in the coffee shop, called him over to draw a monkey on a piece of notebook paper. He obliged, and conversation descended (or ascended) into silliness.

Nicole came by not long after. The two of us went to The Hut (sports bar in ACAC) for tea. We sat in a booth and ordered pizza. We spent a couple of hours talking there. It was refreshing. By the time we were walking back to Mayo apartments, dusk was falling. In the west, Venus burned through the elm trees, and in the south, Jupiter was glowing near the brilliant half moon. The sky was pellucid, ringing with color like a deep bell. On the new U, the fountains were going: jets of water splashing sky-high, spraying color into the air as the lights at their feet changed color. Psychedelic green, aqua, purple, teal, blue, red, orange, magenta, gold. The jets of water are on a long stone paving maybe twenty or thirty feet long by maybe ten feet wide, shooting up in big patterns. Nicole and I pulled off our shoes, rolled up our trouser legs, and splashed onto the pavement between the water. Cold and wet underfoot. We danced and ran and skipped through the water. It was such fun. Nicole and I finally splashed our way back to our shoes again and walked to the apartments.

I went to my apartment and worked on CGE stuff for an hour. Then I went to a (typically dull) Mortar Board meeting. Their ideas about social times are all for pub crawls and casino nights, not my style.

I went to Nicole's apartment to study. She was there by herself, and we sat down to spend a couple of hours working. I worked on CGE stuff for another hour or hour-and-a-half. They want their website information for incoming exchange students (that would include Erasmus) updated. It's good to be on the other side of administration and to be working on application materials for other people to fill out instead of having to fill them out myself.

I'm away to sleep now.

03/10/08

Now Playing: Not much.

I got up at about eight o'clock this morning, dressed, answered e-mails, ate breakfast, did my devotions, said good-bye to Rachel. I dumped my things in the car, then walked over to Oliphant to turn in my HON 3003 paper, then to the library to record my hours for study abroad work. The morning was cool and clear again, another of these unbelievably beautiful days. I took the Tank to QT on 11th Street, filled her up with petrol, then started the drive to Stillwater. On the way, I listened to one of Ricky Jones's sermons on Ephesians from Redeemer PCA. The hills are beginning to look brown and red and gold, bronzed, sunburned.

In Stillwater, I spent an hour or so running errands, going to Wal-Mart to buy a few things, then to the bank, then to the post office to pick up a box. After that, I drove to my house. Everything was quiet, the quiet of a normal day, of settledness and peace. Mandy was sitting on the windowsill outside the study. I picked her up, and she purred and kissed my face. In the back yard, my mother was cutting ripe peppers off the pepper plants. I said hello to her, went upstairs, and surprised Stephen, who was doing school on the computer. He showed me the miniatures he had painted most recently, including a large and grotesque model of Shelob.

In the half-hour I had before I had to leave to eat lunch with Logan, I managed to get almost everything done on my list: threw a load of wash in the laundry, collected a stack of books to take back to TU, opened my post, scribbled down expenses from my checking account in my wee notebook, tossed a few cool weather clothes into my clothes hamper, and made lunch for myself. With my lunch in my satchel, I biked to OSU. The day was perfect for biking. Campus was crowded, of course, at lunch time. I rode to the oak tree on the lawn between the Seretean Center and Old Central and sat there for awhile, waiting for Logan. He came at about half twelve.

We ate a pleasant lunch together, not talking about anything in particular, which was perfect as far as I was concerned. All sorts of strange tiny insects were crawling or flying through the afternoon, odd shapes and colors, like miniatures from a "Star Trek" episode. We spent a couple of hours sitting and chatting, and we prayed together before we said good-bye.

I biked back to my house and spent the first part of the afternoon sitting in the living room, talking with my mother.

At four o'clock, Laura and I drove to Ross to meet Sarah and Rachel for a shopping expedition. Sarah and Laura made each other more and more hyper, as usual. Rachel was skeptical and disgusted at having been made to join a shopping trip; I was mildly amused by the whole proceeding, but troubled at the back of my mind by the afternoon's conversations. Sarah and Laura were ridiculously silly, of course, sorting through the juniors' girls' section, waving shirts in the air for each other to try on. The clothes in Ross tend to be the scouring of designer brands--the weird, wild, and whacky. Mustard yellow, black, grey, odd shades of purple and blue. When we went to the fitting rooms to try things on, Sarah and Laura went through their routine of swapping clothes with each other and showing off all the resulting outfits.

Rachel wanted to go home afterward; Sarah wanted to come to our house for tea. So Rachel took the truck back to the Spitlers' house, while Sarah came downtown with Laura and me. They left me off at The Greenery to get my hair cut. Dusk was falling, and the little hole-in-the-wall hair salon, in the back corner of the little court behind the main row of buildings, was quiet. Mrs. H was slightly more subdued than usual, listening to them. She busily washed, trimmed, gelled, and dried my hair. I thanked her, then rang Sarah and Laura. They were down at Hallmark, nosing around among the cards and gifts.

The three of us went back to our house for tea. My mother had cooked a delicious corned beef for tea, with carrots and potatoes. My father was home from work, and it was good to see him. Sarah and Laura kept us laughing a little during the meal, and afterwards, they settled down to watch "The Three Stooges". I said good-bye to everyone, walked to the car alone, and drove back to Stillwater.

Dusk fell quickly. Sumac and goldenrod are turning red. Keystone Lake was an opalescent periwinkle, reflecting the last light in the sky. Back on campus, I rang Philip to tell him that I'd returned the car. He was taking Alyson out tonight and asked for advice. I went up to the apartment, where Rachel was working on real analysis. Sat and chatted with her for awhile before going down to the SAC to meet the Hellmans. Jenny and Spencer pulled up in Jenny's car at about a quarter past eight to go to the Tulsa State Fair. Before we went to the fair, we drove up to north Tulsa to pick up Jenny's "little" (she's in the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program), Alison. Alison turned out to be a slender little fourteen-year-old, very blond, with a definite feisty streak but also something of vulnerability staring out of her big pale blue eyes. Spencer rocketed us back through the streets, bumping over potholes. The fairgrounds are down on 21st Street. We parked in the Lowe's car park and walked to the fairgrounds from there. We walked through acres and acres of parked cars, bought tickets, and entered the fairgrounds.

See pictures from the fair here.

The fairgrounds were absolutely enormous. We walked up a broad thoroughfare between two big barns, one of which had a show arena in it. Tonight was a draft horse competition, and the gigantic Shires and Percherons stood in their harnesses, gleaming and stamping and jingling. We wandered into one of the exposition buildings, where people were selling rodeo trinkets, and from there out into the main open area. The place was just huge. Colorful lights blinking everywhere. Booths with dart- and ball-throwing competitions. Jenny and Alison played at throwing darts at balloons, the grand prizes for which amounted to a felt rose for Alison and a rather ugly pink teddy bear for Jenny.

There were vendors selling corn dogs, cotton candy, funnel cakes, soft drinks, and there were tiny enclosed spaces housing oddities: "World's Largest Alligator!" "World's Largest Pig!" "World's Smallest Woman!" Spencer and Jenny went into the "museum" of oddities, outside of which garish canvas paintings announced "Come see the Monkey with a Human Head! Come see the Weird Wolf-boy! Come see the Baby with Elephant's Skin! Come see the World's Fattest Man!" Alison and I stood outside uneasily and waited for them to come out.

We wandered through the area where most of the rides were. All sorts of twisting, turning, flying contraptions, that whirled you into the air and sent you spinning in ten or twenty different directions all at the same time. Jenny wanted to ride a thing like a big crane with baskets on either end that whirled you round and round into the sky. The rest of us weren't so keen.

We went into the biggest of the exposition buildings, a place at least the size of Noah's ark. Vendors were selling everything from shiny new Jeeps and Chevrolets to embroidery and sewing machines to hot tubs and swimming pools. The Tulsa Police Department had a display, as did other organizations. There were stands where people were selling woodworking tools or displaying their balloon-making art. The place was gigantic, the ceiling lights lost in a haze of dust.

Outside, we wandered down to the foot of the building, where most of the food was located. Booths selling hamburgers, gyros, margaritas, Mexican food. Spencer and Jenny both bought corn-on-a-stick, which had been Jenny's one goal for the night. We walked past airbrush tattoo artists and fortunetellers, past stands sparkling and chiming faintly with jewelry as people paused to finger necklaces, bracelets, belt buckles, and rings. Tents housed bars from which live music poured into the night. Back near the animal buildings, we saw not only the requisite pony ride but also, astonishingly enough, a big tank with sea lions in it. It seemed very strange to me....

The fairgrounds were packed with people. The strangest of strange people. Highschool students, Goths, cowboys, and an incredibly vast ethnic blend, shocking to me with my eyes adjusted to the homogeneity of northern Europe. So many sad-looking people, though, people whose lives seemed to center on this sort of drab amusement. Cigarette smoke and beer, dust, diesel fumes on the air. Pushing through thick lines of people waiting to get onto the rides, smelling the sugar and oil from the food vendors, dazzled by lights and noise.

We visited the animal buildings last. Inside one of them was a petting zoo, complete with a small but genuine giraffe, a couple of camels, a tiny and very fuzzy yak, a couple of llamas (one of them had been shaved with a poodle cut so that its head was a mop of tangled fur), rabbits, chickens, peacocks, sheep, pigs, a variety of African deer, and goats. There were lots of wee baby goats, with which Jenny and Alison fell in love. "They're so cute! They're so tiny! Can we take one home?" Jenny laughed as one of the wee flop-eared things nudged her fingers through the bars of the pen. Nearby there were farrowing pens, where a sow was giving birth to piglets.

Our last stop was the horse barn, where the big draft horses from the night's competition had been put into stalls. They were absolutely beautiful. Huge, gracious, perfectly-groomed. They nosed the bars of their stalls to let us stroke their faces.

We walked back to the car eventually. We took Alison home, and then Spencer and Jenny dropped me off in Mayo. Rachel was still awake, but she stayed up just long enough to say hello and hear a little bit about the fair before she went to bed. I took a shower and then went to sleep myself.

On my way to sleep, so tired that I'm seeing...

... WHITE RABBITS.