the post about how i feel

in response to ppb's kind comment, asking me how i feel...

• health-wise, i feel better. i think the crud is more or less gone, after almost four days of laying around. still don't know if it was a virus or bacterial and probably never will know. i'm still slightly coughy and sniffly, but i can walk about now, and that's an accomplishment.
  
• i feel like if we have to do another funeral, my head will explode. two funerals in one week, particularly if that week happens to be during advent, is enough.
  
• i feel like the pulpit is getting an awful lot of me lately. advent 3, funeral homily, christmas eve, christmas day, sunday after christmas.
  
• i feel mediocre about my christmas eve sermon draft, and i don't want to preach it. don't worry, katherine, i won't steal yours.
  
• i feel like if my little insomnia spat doesn't end soon... well, something. i don't know.
• i feel pissed off. a couple of months ago, a youth lector changed the pronouns referring to the divine from 'he' to 'she' in the pulpit (after checking with the head lector about five minutes before the service, which to me was inadequate advance notice). she was up again last sunday, and the head lector asked her not to switch the pronouns because "some old women disguised as men" had complained. she no longer wants to read, which i can respect. i received an email from her mother saying she no longer wants to be on the lector list, either, and talking about how the episcopal church is a big tent, but now she's not so sure. this whole situation pisses me off for numerous reasons:
• don't assume, mother, that just because you personally didn't hear me defend your daughter that that means she wasn't defended. i talked with people about the divine feminine after that; i simply didn't pick up the phone to let you know about it every time i did so.
  
• i don't like that it seems that the complainers 'won' and the lector is being censured.
• i'm also not sure that i'm entirely comfortable with her switching the pronouns in a scriptural reading. other places? prayers of the people? fine. but the lector's job is to read the text as given.
  
• 'big tent' doesn't mean that everyone gets what they want publicly all the time. that'd be impossible. the bigger the tent, the more likely we'll have clashes of opinions.
  
• i would have preferred a note from the daughter rather than the mother. also, i think standing in solidarity by yourself is stupid (like people who boycott without being part of an organized boycott... ).
  
• i feel frustrated that you chose to send this email on this week. thanks.
  
• i'm not saying i'm right about any of this; this is just how i feel.
• i feel a little anxious about my mom and sister visiting. this is cleaning and entertaining anxiety, mostly, along with a little family dynamic anxiety. fortunately, the mr. is a huge help. that, and i've secured us several invitations to eat with some fairly low-stress people while they're here, too, to mix it up a little bit.
  

more than you bargained for, more than you need to know, but there it is.

the post about the crud

sometimes i'm secretly happy when i get sick. i get to stay in bed and read and watch movies, things i like to do and don't do all that often. this is not one of those times.

i have the crud. again. i just had the crud over thanksgiving. i'm in the mood to bake, paint, clean, write something slightly more thoughtful than my blog. but i have no energy whatsoever for those kinds of thing. so i'm not only sick, i'm really frustrated.

/whining.

another post

this weekend:

• got eyebrows waxed after seeing them and their hairiness in pics from campus ministry xmas party
  
• pedicure (ahhh...)
  
• visited parishioner in prison
  
• friday night potluck with presbyterians
  
• i seem to attract presbyterians. i'm not complaining. i'm just sayin'.
  
• massive cleaning-out of paper in the mr.'s crap room (yes, that really is what we call it). i went through and filed a bunch of stuff and then went through our file cabinet (and all these papers he had thrown all over the place) to the tune of one GIANT trash bag's worth. he nearly had a heart attack when he saw me in there cleaning, but i have to live here, too, and that room makes me nuts. and i was extremely generous in what i did not throw out. so there. we're going to use the paper for kindling.
  
• unfortunately, it was in the high 60s yesterday, which makes fires pretty much a non-option right now.
• i like cleaning out. not cleaning up, but giving things away or throwing them away. i find it cleansing.
  
• i married a packrat.
  
• the nutcracker. it was pretty good, all things considered.
  
• another advent wreath lighting fiasco. i am almost to the point where i want to refuse to be involved with lighting the damn thing at the main service.
• led bible study on the gospel text for this week. preaching this coming sunday. for the first time in my life, i feel sorry for john the baptizer. before, he's always just made me squirmy. you can still be called by god and be really, really, really (really) off about what that means.
  
• the mr. is doing some major structural stuff underneath the house. i can't even describe it, b/c i don't understand it.
• present-wrapping
• primed bookshelf for painting
  
• laundry
• made lentil-spinach soup. it called for three cups of water. i substituted two cups chicken broth, 1 cup white wine. it cooked down nicely, though i was nervous right after i put in the wine.
  
• weird tickly throat... had to go to sleep sucking on cough drop... wasn't i just sick?
• cat in love with (fake) christmas tree... won't stop sitting under it.
  
• yesterday: one year as a priest
• today: need to be very productive/focus at work. in the meantime, if anyone talks to me at the gym this morning, i will hurt him. i'm not feeling talkative.
  
• i'm perfectly aware that this blog has gotten fairly boring fairly quickly, which is somewhat disappointing, but i seem to be unable to muster the wherewithal to change that.
  

the post about passports

the other day, when i saw the package from the us government, i spent several seconds trying to figure out what i had done wrong. then i remembered: passport renewal. have you seen the new ones? they're rather high-tech, or at least they seem so when you compare it to the one i was issued in '98, with my picture just pasted in it, not digitally scanned.

and, on an equally important note, if anyone can figure out how to make their legs shave themselves, please tell me.

the post about guilt (extended disco version)

i love it when i live in to stereotypes, don't you? i go on vacation; i get sick. i have some type of bronchitis. meh. oh, well. what can you do?

the real question is: why do i feel slightly guilty for lounging though i'm sick and on vacation? i've seen people: dad, maternal extended family-- cousins, aunts, uncle, grandmother, oh my!--, best friend, best friend's girlfriend, lots of mom time. i wrote a sermon; i wrote newsletter articles. got the car aligned-- headed off potential flat b/c guy at tire place found nail in tire. somehow i still feel unproductive. i'm not supposed to be productive!! i'm on vacation! i'm sick! what's wrong with me?! wait; don't answer that.

most of the guilt is due to my old room at my mom's stares at me accusingly:

still
full
full
full
of
my things
my things
my things

• middle school jewelry from claire's strewn on the desk
• clothes, including the prom dress, the wedding dress, my favorite dress from high school
• books, books, books, everywhere, and nothing to read
• any and all things ballet-related, trinkets on the dresser, posters on the walls, tutus in the closet, everywhere
• dolls, including two american girls(ppb-- direct me to your post)
• drawings from art class
• reply cards from the wedding
• and i moved a lot of things out last october, into my home with the mr., but it's not enough.

is it ever enough?
am i ever done?

i'm fairly process-oriented, generally okay with not doing something concrete and tangible with, well, with my life, but every once in a while, it grates on me.

HEY! every once in a while? go. away. now. (please.)

the post about mom's house

i'm at my mom's house. i think all the major crashing i did after exams in college in this space made me associate it with sleep. i can barely keep my eyelids open, and it's not even 9 p.m. on a friday. zzz...

the post about this weekend

this weekend:

• senior voice recital of one of the college students (can't go to all of the recitals, but i go to at least one-- senior is kinda the last chance)
• painted porch swing (one coat primer, two coats exterior white)
• preaching galore: about how questions shape the answers we receive and death (freddie the leaf story for family and children's service)
  
• first fire in the fireplace
• church hosted social gathering for ppl who are the same ethnicity as the refugee family the church is sponsoring. one of the other refugee families was in a car accident on the way home-- car went off the road, the driver overcorrected into oncoming traffic on two lane highway. mother- dead. baby- dead. aunt- dead. father and 3 yr old in critical condition. to come so far to die here.