thoughts proceeding in the manner of skipped stones

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I am 20 years old and I have just figured out, on my own, the best way to cut boiled asparagus, having so far avoided the hundreds of potential opportunities when I might have learned this already.

    (Diagonally. Like a baguette. And you brace the asparagus against the fork on the other side while you're slicing it.)

    For years I've been cutting it straight across and it's gotten all separated and stringy and un-cut-able, like a squishy green human spine.

    Movin' up in the world yeah.

     In other news, for various reasons I now have a queen-sized hide-a-bed to sleep on for a few days. I am sprawled across it as I write this. I almost never sleep on beds this wide; I feel quite majestic, like a sleepy tyrant surveying the bloodstained districts of her warm, sleepy dominion.

   Also, my dad is in his early fifties and his hairline is immaculate. Not a hint of filamentous recession. I wish more people could be like him that way. Good job, dad.

quite the exalted legacy

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    There have been two extremely brief moments relating to massively influential 16th-century Christian theological reformer John Calvin in my life recently.

    The first was at a church's book sale that my parents decided to stop at and at which I did not initially object to stopping at. They like books and will stop for almost any garage-sale-type happening they find.

    We had just entered the building full of books for sale, which managed to look like a basement even though it was at ground level, when we were accosted by over-helpful and understimulated church people who were supposed to be selling the books.

    One of them, a man with glasses and dull brown hair, pointed out the various tables by booky subject matter and told us to ask us if we wanted help finding anything.

    "Any collected works of John Calvin?" asked my dad, brightly.

    "Um, maybe! He'd be over here if we have that," said the man, starting to lead my dad to the "Christian" table.

    "Is he, like, a crime or thriller author?" asked one of the church people, a woman seated on a black faux-leather couch.

    "No, John Calvin, the theologian," said the man.

    "Oh, that John Calvin," said the woman.

    I was not completely successful on the "not snorting audibly" front.

   

    The second moment was a sleepy revelation of my own mental failings, which I had last night as I was drifting towards sleep in my temporary cot in the middle of the living room. (Have I mentioned that I'm staying in a retirement home right now?) First, some background info.

    All semester long this spring, several of my fellow students had been carting around a pair of matched books for Professor Mine Enemy's class on pneumatology and soteriology. (Calvinism was probably more relevant to the soteriology bit, I would think, but then I don’t know anything about anything.)

    This is what those books looked like.

    And the joke hit me just last night, two weeks after the end of a semester where I'd seen them around all the time, including over spring break because friend Gabby was in Pneumatology and Soteriology and brought her books home like a good girl, and I'd heard passages from them read aloud several times by entertained students in the lounge.

    Whenever I'd seen them and mentally contrasted the covers I'd always just thought "oh look happy growing things are on the nice green positive side and sad dead flower things are on the negative grr angry bad side," and then for some reason last night - I can't even remember why I was thinking of these books, I never read them - for some reason last night it just hit me like "oh yes happy flowers and bad flowers - oh my fffffuh they're tulips i'm an idiot"

    the books on Calvinism have tulips on them

    like the acronym T.U.L.I.P. which is a famous mnemonic for the five points of Calvinism

    so the tulips on the covers are alive or dead based on the author's argument for or against the theological integrity of the major tenets of Calvinism

    I think I'll go exchange my brain for a sack full of week-old overcooked oatmeal now

    I don't even like oatmeal   

    and it would probably do me more good

pig pig pig pig (also austen)

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    The pet shop downtown, which often sells unusual things, has had a pair of very young potbellied pigs for sale this week. One gray, one black. The gray has been sold. The black one I have seen twice, and I've lost my heart to it.

    I only have pictures of it on my phone and I can't transfer phone pictures to my computer, otherwise I'd show you. It is small and hairy and black and has the sweetest face anyone's ever seen, and it makes soft grunting and squealing noises and has soft little feet and when it flops down on its side, it will make happy grunts when you rub its belly. Mumsy, observing me petting it in its bin, said that it seems quite natural for me to be in combination with a piggie. I would agree.

    I want the piggie. So badly. I want it for my very own. I live in a college dorm and my parents are living in an apartment and will be for at least another couple years.

    I keep having to tell myself to love and let go, love and let go, love and let go. Be like a river. Accept things into my heart, love them with all the love they should be loved with, and let go of them. Or perhaps to never hold onto them in the first place. There are (and have been, and will be) so many things that I want and can't have.

    (Mumsy wonders if perhaps I am projecting all of my longstanding suppressed wantings onto the piggie and channeling sadnesses and frustrations into it.)

     Blah, I know nothing about caring for pigs. Pig is better off without me.
    (but i waaaaaaant iiiiiiiiit aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh)


    ANYWAY so my mother and I curled up and watched Sense and Sensibility for the umpteenth time yesterday. Certain parts with certain people still make me crumple with joy.

    You're so good at being so bad.

bed is where the heart is

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Well!

    It is summer break!

    Saturday we had a lovely commencement ceremony. All the beautiful Ph.D's were in their robes and all the baby grads were in their less awesome robes and the choir were in their choir get-up and we were all dressed nicely and there was singing and speeches and bachelor-of-arts-ing and photographs. I suppose normal colleges don't have the assembly singing in their commencement ceremonies. How boring.

    Then there was everybody out on the lawn talking and being beautiful and drinking punch and eating strawberries and grapes and chocolate truffles. I ate just enough to be something, thanked a doctor for hiring me for a job working in the academic support center next year, grabbed a Sarah with a camera and cornered Dr. Mac and got a picture with him, fumbled my way out of the crush of people onto the lawn, stopped briefly to say goodbye to Professor Mine Enemy and shake his hand, and dashed dormward to pack.

    (I may tell you sometime about the most recent major change in the plans for my college's future. I might tell you about the conversation I had with PME on Thursday night after we found out about the change, when he was ecstatic and I was excited and happy and something surprising happened. I might tell you about all the drama of the past few weeks, or what the graduating seniors were like and how I'm going to miss them, I might tell you about the papers and the dances and the long walks and the money and the uncertainty and the fact that the college might not exist next year, but I do not have the energy.)

    Five hours later I was lost and bleating in an airport in Oregon. My Auntlet eventually found me, though, and whisked me home and took me to Best Friend's dark, empty house and then I was dropping my luggage on the floor and crawling into bed, and then I slept for 14 and a half hours (because the all-nighter I pulled Thursday through Friday had me awake 41 hours). I woke up to find that I had become 20 years old. Best Friend and her sister came home later that day, with their parents coming home in the evening, and we ate cake and watched Star Trek: TNG while I curled up all over Best Friend's sister and their dog. I'm staying with them for a week and then with other people for a week and then spending the summer with my Auntlet instead of my parents.

    (Oh, goodness, have I mentioned that they've found a new home for my dog since I can't take him and my parents can't really take him? That happened.)

    Now I am waiting for final grades and trying to find a job. All I want to do is sleep.

    Best Friend's Dad took her and her sister and me to see The Avengers tonight and afterwards demanded to know which guy in it we each thought was "the hottest." Best Friend's Dad has a Ph.D and a beard, he teaches college-level history and is married to a poet and cooks food.

    Oh, lands, I'm so tired in my bones.

what is bed

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I have seen eternity

    it looks like still being awake at 5:41am

    writing a paper

    and still having two pages to go

i am now the poster child for eternity, also this is an example of the phenomenon commonly known as "finals face"

    Also there are birds making bird noises outside

    I never hated birds so much before

    oh man



    *Edit five minutes later:

    the sky is turning blue, Harriet Walter.

    this is not acceptable


    6:14am

    I have transcended tiredness.

    My heart has ceased to be lovesick for my pillow and mattress.

    I went outside for a few minutes and stood out in the dorm courtyard and smelled the dawn. That was nice.

    8:02am

 Is it possible to transcend transcendence, because I'm really quite tired now



    12:33pm

    BOOYAH

    DONE

    I HAD LITERALLY NO IDEA IT COULD TAKE THAT MUCH TIME TO WRITE AND EDIT ONE SEVEN-PAGE RESEARCH PAPER, I STARTED AT LIKE TEN LAST NIGHT AND I ALREADY HAD A PAGE OR TWO, WHY DID I CHOOSE THE TOPIC FROM HELL

    and now I am done with my freshman year of college.

    That is good.

prophet sloth

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    oh lands

    finals

    there are TOO MANY MINOR PROPHETS IN THIS HERE BIBLE

    and I have to know everything about all twelve of them

     and to be able to articulate things like the reasons for and against the interpretations of Jonah as parable or historical account and the theological significance of Habakkuk's ever-relevant complaint (bad people are getting away with bad things) and the answer given to him in chapter 2 (God will send the Chaldeans to kill everyone)

    so here is a picture of a baby sloth

    If I could go back to the beginning of this year, my freshman year, I would tell my tiny frightened self that 1, my grades were going to get much better in time, 2, Professor Mine Enemy is actually totally not that intimidating after one gets to know him and it just takes a while to see past the colossal mind to the ridiculously dorky and awkward-but-fun man he is, 3, I would get better at dealing with too little sleep, 4, sometimes things are going to hurt and that's ok, 5, it's possible to get through airports all on one's own, 6, I should stop cutting my hair so short, and 7, everything is going to be ok.