Ultimate Concern

Reset your bookmarks

2007-07-21T13:58:00.000-04:00

For the few people who might still be checking on me, I'm finally making the move to Wordpress here. I'm still setting up the blogroll and messing with the template, but I really love the flexibility and ease-of-use of the Wordpress interface. I may eventually try to secure a domain name, but for now that link will work.

Just got back from a long bike ride (the first in six long years) with T and our friend J. The portion of the trip on bike trails was delicious and therapeutic; the part on busy roads, not so much. But I'm glad we went. There's a funny thing about exercise that I can never seem to remember when I'm considering whether or not to haul my butt into motion on a particular day: I always feel much better afterwards. More settled and happy. It needs to become part of what I do daily to stay strong and happy, like flossing (I'll have to tell my flossing conversion story later, but it's worth it!).

20 Days of Work Left

2007-07-09T09:26:00.000-04:00

I know I'm indulging unproductive mental habits, but I'm totally counting down the days I have left in my job before it's time to make the final push in the move to New York. Hopefully, I'll have a few final projects to finish up to pass the time. Then, we're off to the next adventure.

Terry spent last week at our priest's cabin in the foothills of the Appalachians, and I was lucky to be able to join him for a few days for a wonderful spate of sabbath rest. There's no phone, no Internet, no radio or TV, no getting or spending to lay waste our powers. Just the voice of the river and play-time and cooking and being together. The cabin itself is very cozy and well-designed, too, with lots of natural wood and deck-space.

Last night, after getting back, we went over to K&M's to hang out, have a few drinks, and process the week. We ended up watching a show K had TiVo'd called something like, America's Messiest House Contest. People send in video of their messy house, and judges pick the messiest house for a makeover. Apparently, America's Messiest House is in Pascataway, NJ. Watching is almost a little painful, as the residents get called on the carpet and badgered to get rid of things, but the degree of sheer clutter in their house was truly sobering. The family chosen also had some lingering grief issues over a husband/father's untimely death and seemed to be expressing their inability to move forward in their surroundings.

From what I could tell, there were two major motivations for the kind of hoarding exhibited, which, though extreme, was different only in degree and not in kind from the accumulation of stuff many of us are prone to:

1) "That belonged to Daddy," or "That reminds me of my husband..." Having dealt with the detritus of my mother's life, I am particularly sympathetic to this one. For a long time, I couldn't bear to throw away anything in which I could discern her hand: nothing she wrote or knit or sewed or drew. I just couldn't bring myself to throw away any evidence of her having lived for fear of extinguishing her memory. Over time, I realized that I had no special attachment to a majority of these things and that I bore her memory in my very cells. Why should I haul around this stuff like a talisman? My mother's truest life is "hidden with Christ in God." (Colossians 3:3) I don't need to keep it safe by holding on to her things. So, I've kept a few things that have special meaning for me. The rest of I've thrown away or given away to folks who can enjoy them.

2) "You never know when I might need that (whatzits)..." This is a real demon of anxiety, preying on the minds of the living. Ironically, its voice is most vociferous in a culture like ours, which is, frankly, saturated with consumer goods. My amateur pet economic theory, derived from everything we went through to clean out our house when we moved, is that we live in an economy that produces a dizzying multitude of consumer goods whose only value is their newness. In other words, for the most part, we are not paying for utility or beauty or craftsmanship usually. We are simply paying for newness. And once we have taken the product off the shelf and paid the nice cashier for it, its value depreciates almost immediately to zero (or a negative value, since it will cost something to us or to the landfill or the environment to get rid of). What I'm discovering this summer, while I'm living without the majority of my worldly goods, is that I need a good bit less than I think. And not having to store or shuffle around or keep track of stuff I don't use is liberating in a biblical sense. It is a release from slavery. Granted, I'm looking forward to getting especially my books and our kitchen stuff back, but perhaps with a clearer sense that I'm using them, rather than they using me. Look at everything around: if it is not useful or beautiful or beloved, consider getting rid of it. It's a worthy exercise, and spiritually edifying.

Working Notes for Sermon (Proper 8)

2007-07-01T21:03:00.000-04:00

Revised Common Lectionary readings, Proper 8, Year C. The Gospel is Luke 9:51-62.

These are just notes of a sermon I preached at my home church today.

*************

I want to see an icon written that has Jesus with his back to us, walking along a road, perhaps with a star ahead of him, definitely in mid-stride. Because that's what some of the folks in our Gospel saw of Jesus after they asked him to wait, just, just, a second, *first* I have to… No. Now. The train is pulling out of the station. Are you getting on?

Can you imagine what they must've felt as they watched him walk away? The longing, the anger, the resentment? So why have an icon of it?! Well, I think it's also an icon of hope, as I hope you'll see.

The Scriptures are not, in general, full of people seeking God. The Scriptures are full of people being sought by God, being pulled up short and shaken up by God. But from what I can see, the call will come not when you are expecting it, but when you are not. Elisha was at his plow, Moses tending Jethro's flocks, Matthew at his tax collector's table, Peter and James and Andrew at their nets. It will come when you are holding on the phone, or writing an e-mail, weeding your garden, or cooking a meal. It will come while you're checking your Blackberry or changing a diaper or waiting to cross the street. But when the call comes, we have to understand that it may not come again. You will never be this person, responding to this call, at this particular time, ever again.

This gets at a concept of the ancient world that comes in handy here. There is such a thing as kairos: the right time. And the wrong time. Bakers can tell you this, and wine makers, and farmers.

'But, wait, I have to…?' Tell that to the bread in the oven or the ripe tomato hanging low on the vine. No. Now. These are not silly things these folks want to do! 'I have to bury my father.' What more fundamental moral duty is there than to bury one’s parents, if it’s possible? But Jesus said, The time for you is right now: let someone else do that. The audacity of Jesus! This is no 'Savior, meek and mild.' [NB: You'll note that 'Let the dead bury their own dead' is not a verse often used at funerals!]

'I have to say good-bye to the people I love, those that love me.' No. Now. There's another example of Jesus' famous family values for you! Even Elisha got to have a cook-out for the village before leaving to follow Elijah, but not so the followers of Jesus.

Jesus says 'No,' not because these are bad things to do, but because putting my to-do list before the life-giving Dominion of God is a pernicious habit of mind that is difficult to escape and spiritually dissipating. A life spent paying attention to what’s crying out for attention rather than what’s most important wakes up one day to find the credits rolling and no time left to do what most needed doing.

From a translation of the poetry of Sufi mystic Rumi by Coleman Barks: “There is one thing in this world that you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there's nothing to worry about; but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing with your life. It's as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do. So human beings come into this world to do a particular work… If you don't do it, it's as though a priceless Indian sword were used to slice rotten meat. It's a golden bowl being used to cook turnips, when one filing from the bowl could buy a hundred suitable pots. It's a knife of the finest tempering nailed into a wall to hang things on.”

Here's the truth we all know at some level but need to be reminded of when we get drowsy or distracted. We have a finite number of days in this life; no one knows how many. Is there always a reason to put off commitment, to be prudent in investing your life? Of course. If there weren't, we might not be so prone to doing it. Don't put off following Jesus. When the call comes, no matter what the cost, say ‘Yes.’

This same Jesus that demands so much is also offering us a gift: single-mindedness. Plow a straight row; prepare the earth for fruitfulness by keeping your eyes on Jesus and following where he leads. Looking back means the furrows will be crooked and shallow. No time for nostalgia, that delicious longing for a past that never was. No time for regrets or wishing things had been different: they weren't. Keep your eye on that strong back in motion. See how the icon of Christ's back can be empowering? As Buckminster Fuller said, God is a verb! As you pay attention to the task and follow his lead, the plow will break up the ground under your feet. Understand that this is what comes first. You're not even ready to plant yet!! First you have to prepare the ground, plow faithfully and carefully, to break up the dry clods at the surface of your life and release the loamy moist interior. Then perhaps the seed can take root.

What does following Jesus look like? I’ll tell you what it doesn’t look like: calling down fire to rain from heaven on your enemies or those you fear.. The days of those pyrotechnics are long over. Jesus is asking for something greater, something much closer to the heart of God.

Think of the icon of Jesus walking away. I love it because it tells us that this act of adoration is not a picture show, a movie we can behold passively. There’s a reason why the early Jesus movement was called People of the Way. We've got to move! Follow that man! Go where you think he would be. Listen. Spend time in the wilderness wrestling with our demons. Travel light. Tell the good news of God's love for each and all. Feed the hungry. Eat with all kinds of people. Heal the sick. Bind up the broken-hearted. Seek out the lost. Answer questions with more questions. And don't forget: following Jesus leads to Jerusalem and the centers of power.

Following Jesus might lead to overturning the tables in the Temple. Following Jesus will probably mean getting in trouble. Stepping in his footsteps might lead to abandonment and confusion and chaos and humiliation, maybe. Following Jesus might lead to the cross, maybe not an execution nailed to a post with a crossbar, outside the city, far from help and comfort, like his, but your personal cross and mine—the suffering we will willingly bear for the love of God and God's beloved children. And the testimony of faith witnesses to us that following Jesus will also lead to resurrection, to new life, to glory and splendor, to joy and communion.

It’s tempting to think – first, I have to be a better person – first, I have to get my act together – first, I have to have a firmer faith – first, I have to be sure –first, I have to be able to say the creed without smirking or grimacing – No. When the chance comes, take the first step. Follow that back. Go!

Moved!

2007-05-23T09:56:00.000-04:00

T and I have sold our house! It was the first house we owned together and served as a wonderful nest for us for almost five years. Still, moving is so stressful! I don't think I'd been this at-my-wits-end since my mother died five years ago and I had the task of emptying her apartment in a month's time. I am still a little dismayed at the amount of stuff that we had accumulated. It happens so imperceptibly, and then suddenly you're surrounded by Tracy Chapman's "mountains o' things" and you have to make it all fit into boxes and you wonder what this thingamabob is and where on earth it came from and why you need it if you had actually completely forgotten you had it! After many (literally dozens) of carloads of stuff to take to the dump or to donate to our local thrift shops, we have pared down our possessions to what will fit in one 10' x 10' storage space. We are crashing for the summer with our old roommate who has gotten a new place and are living out of suitcases mostly with only what might be required for traveling--clothing, toiletries, laptops, a few choice books.

The Christmas Tree

2007-05-18T09:35:00.001-04:00

This is probably my favorite YouTube video of the month. I just can't get enough of it.

The Lazy Blogger Makes an Entry!

2007-01-17T13:44:00.000-05:00

OK. So I know mine must be the lamest blog on the internets. But here's my first post for 2007, with news.

I've just learned that I've been admitted to the next step of the ordination process in the Episcopal Church. I'm now a Postulant for Holy Orders in the Diocese of North Carolina. (translation: we've grilled you enough for now. we like you! go on to seminary and have some fun.) The Bishop and I have agreed that I'll go to General Theological Seminary in New York. I am incalculably grateful for the grace that has brought me to this moment.

Baruch atah Adonai eloheinu melekh ha-olam shehecheyanu v'kiyemanu v'higiyanu laz'man ha-zeh.

"“Blessed art thou, Lord our God, Master of the universe, who has kept us alive and sustained us and has enabled us to see this day."

Suddenly the waiting is over and there's lots to do. I ask your prayers and continued good thoughts as I move into the next phase of formation. And move to the Big Apple!

Midsummer's Post

2006-07-20T14:14:00.000-04:00

I'm happy to report that I've been admitted to the next step of the Diocesan discernment process for the priesthood. I've begun a six- (or possibly nine-) month internship at Chapel of the Cross. I will be participating in liturgical, educational, administrative, and pastoral aspects of the life of the parish for about twelve hours a week.

Terry and I have gone to their large main Eucharist the past couple of Sundays, and I already like how different from my usual experience it is. I'm used to small, come-as-you-are churches that are a little impromptu and lumpy and where a lot depends on individuals. CotC is large, affluent, and formal, which made me a little apprhensive at first, but the folks I've met are very kind and warm. I'm looking foward to finding my place in this large, thriving community with such a long history.

For those who might be interested in moot points, I got a very respectable score on the April MCAT: 33 (10 Physical Sciences, 11 Biological Sciences, 12 Verbal Reasoning). All together, I scored around the 87th percentile, though my VR was a good bit better than the other sub-tests. My essay was graded a Q, which is definitely respectable but not stellar. It was the best I could do in thirty minutes! My best writing most often requires editing. For now, I'm happy just sticking that experience in my pocket and wondering what I'll do with it. Still, it gives me a nice shot of self-confidence to know that I sat for such a grueling test and was able to perform well.

Why does the summer seem so long to me? Terry and I had a great time last weekend, though, at a swimming hole on the Eno River in Durham. The water was high and cool and delicious. Next time, we have to remember to bring floating devices and lunchables. Still, it was an intoxicatingly fun day. I'm not good at playing, so I rarely make time for it. I'd forgotten how delightful and restful a day of playful activity can be. I've got to make room for more!

Countdown to Ash Wednesday

2006-02-21T09:21:00.000-05:00

I've started thinking about what I want to give up (or practice faithfully) during Lent. But I think it's too easy for Lenten disciplines to become yet another self-improvement regimen. The problem is that self-improvement is all tied up in, well, self. So, whatever I do, I think it's important not to undertake it like I would a diet or a New Year's resolution or a new system of organization to become a more "highly effective person."

The key, I think, is to remember that I'm doing what I'm doing to accompany and imitate Jesus in his fasting in the desert, preparing himself to face "our ancient foe." (Matthew 4:1-11) That's one of my guiding texts as I consider. I think Jesus was led by the Spirit to fast in the desert because he needed to master the force of craving. But not as an exercise in denying or loathing the created world. I think he wanted to face two essential questions:

Will my desire for the cucumbers, melons, and leeks of Egypt lead me back into slavery? (Numbers 11:5)

What if Israel had gone back into slavery for some nice soup instead of this manna, day in, day out? What if Abraham had waved off God's "Go!" to stay in the green land between the rivers? What if Ruth had gone back to her people and left Naomi to fend for herself? What if Mary had said, "I'll be the laughing-stock of the village. Find some other maiden. I just want a nice marriage and some normal children with my husband?" What if Jesus had turned back from his ministry and the cross at the end of it because it's much more comfortable to have somewhere to lay your head and to avoid pissing off powerful people? Following where God leads will probably involve discomfort (at the very least). Might as well train for it while you can.

When I am presented with what I want, will I be able to say "no" if I know that someone will be hurt by my getting it?

It doesn't have to be anything major. Maybe it's casually interrupting someone in order to be heard. Maybe it's eating chocolate made from cocoa picked by people suffering outside my realm of concern. Maybe it's enjoying inexpensive consumer goods without worrying about why they're so cheap. Many religious traditions, not just the monotheistic ones, teach that craving messes with the ability to choose with integrity: it makes us double-hearted. I don't think I can purge that kind of double-heartedness entirely, but maybe I can train myself to become compassionately aware of it so I can put off what I want in the moment for the sake of allowing more love into the world, for the flowering of God's gift of freedom.

I'm also aware, though, of another guiding text from the Gospel, excerpted from a paraphrase of the Bible I like, The Message:

When you practice some appetite-denying discipline to better concentrate on God, don't make a production out of it. It might turn you into a small-time celebrity but it won't make you a saint. If you "go into training" inwardly, act normal outwardly.

So there will be no blogging about my Lenten discipline! ;) Still, it's always heartening to be assured of company on the journey, so I welcome encouragement and support.

Long Hiatus

2006-02-16T08:43:00.000-05:00

I'm the world's least faithful blogger! I need to update this more, add content, link to blogs and websites I like. Get it going on!

Just two things today. Lots of change has been roiling in the depths of my life and is now breaking the surface. Though my decision is provisional (as any), I have decided not to apply to medical school. I have had misgivings about a career in medicine for a long time, the most salient being that I don't think it's my vocation. I know it's strange to talk about vocation, but it's the best way I can describe it. As I took classes and got deeper and deeper in to the pre-med world, my original vocation to the ministry began flashing insistently, like a warning light, impossible to ignore. But not threatening. Attractive, incredibly attractive. I began to have serendipitous experiences of joy in liturgy and teaching (e.g. spontaneous weeping for joy--understand, please, I'm not an emotional person--at the end of a St. Gregory's style Morning Prayer at a conference in January). So, I'll be entering the Diocesan Discernment process in the Diocese of North Carolina in the coming months. I know how grueling and unpredictable the ordination process can be, so I'm not putting too many eggs in that basket. But I have positively located what the eggs are in my life: my love for the disciplines and community of faith simply cannot be ignored.

Last word for the day: a sketch of my daily blog-crawl. First, I usually go to Real Live Preacher, whose writing I love. Then, a blast through Dylan Breuer's blog Sarah Laughed. Through RLP, I have also discovered Don't Eat Alone, which I'm really enjoying, especially the recent conversation about chocolate (who knew there are de facto slaves picking cocoa beans in Ivory Coast to make my Hershey's Kisses!?!). As for me and my house, only Fair Trade Chocolate from now on.

OK. Lame post, but still very funny and mysteriously apt in spots

2005-11-15T14:51:00.000-05:00

Got the idea from Dylan Breuer's blog (sarahlaughed.net). You put your first name and "...needs" into Google and see what you get, to wit:

1. Gabe needs them real!
2. Gabe needs to show more power and vastly improved plate discipline.
3. Gabe needs his own forum at this point.
4. Gabe needs work.
5. Gabe needs Gel.
6. Gabe needs presents, too.
7. Gabe needs a black, brown or similar color of 5 1/2 school shoes and sneakers.
8. Gabe needs to be quite effeminate.
9. Gabe needs his trusty old air taser.
10. Gabe needs to do it more for kicks.

Thought for the Day

2005-08-05T09:17:00.000-04:00

From John McQuiston II's Always We Begin Again, a wise little book inspired by the Rule of St. Benedict:

The second stage of humility
is to distrust our own will.
Our wants are insatiable,
and our will is the product of those wants.
Our pleasure,
our needs,
our wishes--
all are mere self-interest,
and the demands of self-interest are never ending...

Therefore the second stage of humility
is not to love our own will,
nor to find pleasure in the satisfaction of our own desires,
but to carry out the unfathomable purpose of our being,
to fulfill the design that can only be discovered
by overcoming our own cravings--
for the function of existence
and of our lives
is not ourselves.

I had a clear sense this week, in my own experiences, that this paradox is the crucible in which our humanity is transformed and made whole. The Buddha said it, too: I am unhappy when I don't get what I want, I am unhappy when I get what I don't want. He could have added, I am unhappy when I get what I want! Talk about a no-win situation!

Still, what is beyond the craving for more to consume--more experience, more stuff, more songs, more news, more food, more sex? I wonder what comes of enduring the craving. And why does the craving feel at its core like loneliness, a wordless longing for communion?

What the People Want

2005-07-27T09:41:00.000-04:00

When I started this blog (with high hopes), I sent out an e-mail to everyone in my address book who I thought might be interested. Just this week, I received an e-mail from my old buddy Jerry say, in effect, "So, I check your blog all the time (or at least every once in a while). You're totally slack! Where's the new content?!" It's good to know there are still people looking after me and interested in what I'm doing and thinking. Thanks, Jer! You're still mama's little angel.

Topic for today: Summer. Considering it's 79.7 degrees F in my office (I have a clock that tells me that), it's a lot on my mind. In listening to people the last couple of weeks, I've discovered that there are two kinds of people in the world (here it comes): people who loved summer vacation and dreaded going back to school, and people who loathed summer vacation and counted the days until school would start again. I am in the latter category. Even when I'm not in school, my mood plummets during the long doldrums of summer: hot days, people going on vacation, the annual lag of progress and ambition. Not that I'm a crazy type-A. I just need a little action going on around me to get motivated.

I generally detest vacations, particularly the 'lounging around on the beach' kind; they make me feel like there are ants crawling on my skin. My family wasn't big on summer vacations, no camp or cabins or road trips. Living in the tropics meant we were almost always near the beach or swimming pool. What vacations we did take were usually miracles of planning: going to Europe in 1985, for instance, taking cheap MAC flights from one air force base to the next. That was exciting. But long days of nothing to do at home were the norm and hellish.

Ah, but put me on a big yellow bus to sit in a classroom with other kids all day and learn stuff, The smell of freshly sharpened pencils, new textbooks, something to do every moment of the day. New teachers, new classmates, trips to the library. Clubs to join, people to have lunch with.
Heaven.

So, what do people love about summer? Post your comments! I'd love to hear how the other half lives.

Stargazer Lilies

2005-07-16T22:52:00.000-04:00

Stargazer Lilies
Originally uploaded by Gabe and Terry.

Here's the stargazer lilies that have bloomed in our yard! Just amazing what a little watering and sun will do. We frequently forget to water. All that biology and it only recently ocurred to me: duh! Without water, plants can't make food, no matter how much sun there is. Anyway, these are beautiful and smell incredible.

Up for Air

2005-05-19T08:48:00.000-04:00

Finally feel like I have time for this blog again. I was inspired by a story on NPR this morning by a woman talking about her expeiences in the blogosphere. Though she was a right-winger, I felt some measure of affection towards what she was doing and wanted to be part of it, so here I am again.

I've just finished my first full-time year of pre-med studies at UNC-Greensboro at the age of 33. School has been a great experience. I used to think that I was losing brain power year by year, but I've discovered it wasn't true. I just hadn't really been exercising my ability to think and expand my understanding of things. Besides, school is much easier as an adult! I actually show up to class every day. I'm interested, I do the work, and I get excellent grades. Why was this so hard when I was 16 to 20? Well, duh. My hormone levels alone made it practically impossible to concentrate.

Hopefully, I'll be starting a temp position on June 1 as a Research Assistant for a study at the UNC School of Public Health in Chapel Hill. I'm excited about working on the study, though a little apprehensive about the uncertainty of temping. Still, I've temped before, and what I'll be doing is great experience for medical school and where I think I'm headed.

So I have a few days off! What am I going to do with them? I don't like free time. Yesterday, I watched the entire Extended Version of The Return of the King on DVD. So good! So emotionally exhausting! It gets to me every time. Still, even as I'm weeping, I worry about its glorification of war and the destruction of an implacable, inhuman, unredeemable enemy. Tolkien's universe is easy that way: the Lidless Eye, orcs, goblins, and trolls are always entirely evil. No ambiguities there. But that's not the world we live in. I think of Iraq and Afghanistan and northern Uganda, where real wars are going on, with real people on both sides, suffering and afraid. And there is evil there on every side. I hope there are also moments of redemption.

Soldiers of the Great War

2004-11-01T21:06:00.000-05:00

I've been considering this question for the past several weeks as I return to school, ostensibly to complete my pre-med studies. The reason I've thought about being a doctor is because I want to make sense of my experiences, particularly of my long engagement with the AIDS epidemic. In many ways, until the present, I have felt, deeply, that the story of the AIDS epidemic among gay men in America is *my* story. I came out in 1990, into the thick of the epidemic, the same year my brother tested positive for HIV. Fourteen years later, after the deaths of my brother and so many others close to me, after all the participation in research, after all the work with people with HIV, after the obsession with understanding everything I could about HIV disease and developing treatments, and after trying to fulfill this past with a trajectory into a life of service as a medical professional...I'm not sure whether I want to do it. I'm starting to think that just because it's been my story for so many years, perhaps doesn't mean it has to continue being my story. Perhaps there is a larger world, perhaps there is more I could do, perhaps it is not a betrayal of the dead to decline the invitation to dedicate my life to people afflicted with this disease. Perhaps it's not.

I am reminded of Andrew Sullivan's article in the New York Times Magazine, "When Plagues End," published in 1996, at the sea-change in the epidemic among gay men. I remember that moment in time. And I remember resonating with the truth of what he wrote, but HIV wasn't done with me yet. I still had my own seroconversion to experience, and my brother's death. I still had almost five full-time years of work at an AIDS service agency ahead of me and six-plus years of dogged treatment with life-saving drugs. But now I have the breathing room to ask: could it possibly be over? Can I relegate it to a formative period and my life and begin something else?

Even as I think about it, I consider the quote in Andrew Sullivan's article, as follows:

...as Mark Helprin expressed so beautifully in his novel ''A Soldier of the Great War,'' what almost every gay man, in a subtler, quieter way, has also learned: 'The war was still in him, and it would be in him for a long time to come, for soldiers who have been bloodied are soldiers forever. They never fit in. . . . That they cannot forget, that they do not forget, that they will never allow themselves to heal completely, is their way of expressing their love for friends who have perished. And they will not change because they have become what they have become to keep the fallen alive.'

If I allow myself to heal completely (is that even possible?), will I betray the memory of the dead whose legacy is ever before me?

Lackluster First Blog

2004-10-30T14:51:00.000-04:00

What's obsessing me right now, unfortunately, is a big fat lab report for my Genetics lab that's due on Monday. I'm 32 years old, and after many years in the labor pool, I've gone back to school to try get some of those sciences I wasn't so excited about during my undergraduate years, with an eye towards health care or teaching. What's hard about this lab report (besides that the data is crap!) is what's hard about any writing: it helps to clarify what I know and makes very clear to me what I don't know as well as I need to. If I don't know it, I can't write about it with any clarity or consistency. And that's the value of writing. But it's still like pulling off an adhesive bandage (isn't that the right alternative to the corporate logo name?): 1)it's best if I do it quickly and under some pressure, 2)it hurts like hell, and 3) when it's over, I'm glad I did it.

Tonight, there is a Halloween party at my house, organized and hosted by my housemate. I usually *loathe* Halloween, mostly because I never have the presence of mind to come up with a good costume. The party has a mad science theme and, as usual, I've been procrastinating about coming up with a costume idea. So, I've got to throw something together. What can I make out of household items. Well, there's always drag! How about "drag queen zombie?" Hmmm. Sounds lame, but it will have to do. I have a spotty drag past, but I think once you've performed for an audience in drag just once, you're pretty much a bona fide drag queen for life, even if it's buried under untold strata of respectability. Drag queen mad scientist? Hmmm. Drag queen reconstructed from dead bodies and reanimated? Hmmm. Stay tuned.