referrals

Can anyone tell me why so many visitors to this site recently have come via the Google Images search results for a picture of my legs that's no longer online?

oh THAT'S what busy is

There was only one day this past week I left work before 10, and I have to say, I far prefer work-busy to school-busy. No matter how hard, long or late I work, I never have to take my work home with me, I never have to feel like I'm neglecting something simply by going to sleep, I never have to self-motivate - not in the way you have to self-motivate to write a research paper about nationalist conflict in Central Asia, or to read 200 textbook pages about the Ming dynasty, or to graph patterns of international trade.

Plus, while we were overworked, it was the work that did it, not the people in charge, who did their best to take good care of us on each long day, from the daily breakfasts to the nightly car rides home, from the multiple coffee trips to the thank-god-it's-the-end-of-the-week whiskey/beer/lemon drops. I've never had so many meals paid for in a week, nor have I taken so many black cabs. Hooray, company tab!

It helps, too, that due to my as-yet-still-temporary-not-salaried status, I'll get something in the range of sixteen hours of overtime pay for the past week. And to think I was worried about the hours I lost due to F(ucking just fix it already) train problems.

I really didn't have it so bad this week. I honestly don't mind working so late, especially when there are other people working around me, and it was good to feel useful since for the previous ... weeks? month? ... I'd started feeling useless and depressed. (Post-collegiate self-idealism rears its ugly head: Why am I not being given any work? Is it possible they don't find me qualified? I could do work fifty times more demanding...) So actually, being busy was nice.

However, I don't know how Jen managed spirit enough to blog this week, given that the work load fell much more heavily on her shoulders. Of course, this is coming from someone who puts keeping up this website on the back burner at the drop of a hat. Still, Jen: impressive as usual. She's additionally the greatest because we had a difficult conversation this week and she let me react like a child and believed me when I said I wasn't as upset as I seemed (details later). She's not thrilled about moving into her new role of managing people but it's obvious already that she'll be great at it.

Today I read (as opposed to skimmed or skipped altogether) my friends' blogs for the first time in ages. I also hung out with my friends for the first time in ages. It was awesome (yes, awesome, like a thousand million hot dogs, sir) to see them all and I haven't had that much alcohol so early in the day since ... I dunno, at least since the last time we did brunch. Yesterday I tidied up and the apartment feels like home again instead of an ill-kept storage box. Friday I got drunk-ish with co-workers after we left work at 10:30 as per usual. Best moment of the night, as nominated by Jen, was my passing a lemon slice to my boss for his tequila shot, him not taking it, and my saying, "I'm not going to hold it for you while you bite into it." I nominate this exchange, outside while smoking with the other Jen:

Jen, Kate: smoke, smoke
Man: Can I bum a cigarette?
Jen: You have to sing or dance.
Man: Sing what?
Jen: How about something by Bowie?
Man: let's dance...
Jen: How about something good by Bowie?

And also the man with a sign that read, "Ninjas killed my family. I need money for kung-fu lessons."

tolerance

Because of the mess on the A/C line, I've changed my entire commute by taking the Coney Island-bound F from my place and changing to the R. This morning I sent an email to some friends about it, saying I actually sort of liked the change because the trains are less crowded and the longer ride means more time to read. Trust them to take it the, uh, wrong way...

We're all very supportive of Kate's "subway change." At first it was difficult when she came to us and told us she'd "changed trains." I mean, we'd always known her as the kind of girl who "rides the A," not the kind of girl who "rides the F backwards," NOT that there's anything WRONG with that. Basically, while it's going to take a while for us to see Kate the way we used to, we're all really proud that she had the common sense to be honest about the "change in her commute" and the guts to "try taking a new train to work."

(credit: the little owl)

things i've learned sitting next to someone who listens to the radio, vol. 1

"Fat Bottomed Girls" by Queen will play more often than you would ever, ever, ever guess.

repeat after me

My mother was in town for a job interview the other day and treated me to a nice dinner. While we ate, she told me about the essay questions she was asked to respond to in order to be considered for the short list.

1. If you take the position, what would be your goals for the next 2-3 years?
2. What would be your goals for the next 5-10 years?
3. What would you want to accomplish during your tenure at the post?
4. If you take the position, when you eventually leave it, what would you like to say you have done?

Hee hee.

On an unrelated note, I found something weirder than having a priest as a mother: going with your priest mother, still wearing her priest's collar, into Victoria's Secret.

please enlighten me

I want to know when it became ok to have cell phone conversations in the bathroom, and by what justification, and why I missed the fuck out of that memo.

humble, and other kinds of pie

On December 24, 2004, whether because of simple carelessness or a subconscious desire to stick it to the church - I claim the former but am prepared to face allegations of the latter- I left in my pew the book I'd brought to read while waiting for the Christmas Eve service to begin, meaning Christmas morning found me back in the cathedral asking the usher, though not in these words, to look in the lost and found for a novel about adultery, with a naked couple pictured on the front cover. When he asked the name of the book, I could hardly bring myself to look him in the face as I said, quietly, "Couples, by John Updike."

On Saturday, I attended my second service in two weeks - my most intensive period of church-going since before I moved away from home. Leaving the house for my mother's ordination to the priesthood, she noticed a book I had tucked under my arm and said jokingly, "I hope you brought lighter reading this time." With a fair bit of mirth I uncovered the title: The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror.

I liked kidding with my mom about this, the seeming incompatibility of my reading material with the particular setting I chose to read it in, and I'm not sure whether it was because of or in spite of the fact that it strikes me as a microcosm of my discomfort with her ordination.

I couldn't believe more strongly in my mother. After doing nothing but mothering for a dozen years, she went back to work not in anything she was trained for, but as a Sunday School coordinator, and found not a hobby or a weekly charity, but a vocation. She went up against the worst of small town politics, of petty grudges held by wealthy church-goers, and against the entrenchment of the status quo in a community for which she was a novelty - a relatively young woman (in the context of the geriatric congregation), a person of Chinese descent, and eventually one-half of a broken marriage. It seemed at times that she would never be described in any terms other than those. On a salary less than half of what I'm making now, she sent me to college, she sent my sister to college, she insisted with a dedication I find perplexing on not letting any neighborhood animal go unfed, and she took as many classes at a time toward her M.Div. as she was allowed by her job, which demanded usually 50, sometimes 70, hours a week.

When the petty and bitter elements of the church she'd helped develop a Christian education program that honestly and humbly enriched the lives of its patrons, school-age and upward, refused to approve her request for consideration for the deaconate, she packed up twenty years of spiritual investment and moved to a new church. Being rejected by the community into which she'd poured so much of herself was a crippling blow. Only the fortune of a vacancy at the church further up the hill saved her from having to uproot completely. Only twice in my life have I heard such hopelessness in her voice, and the other was during the period of difficult disillusionment that preceded and probably equipped her for her decision to aspire to the priesthood.

Finally, in the past year or so, the successes started rolling in. Her discernement committee made a positive recommendation to the bishop, who came down firmly in support of her aspirations. She received her master's in Divinity, passed the 29-hour general ordination exam with one of the highest scores in the country - only one imperfect mark - and was ordained to the deaconate. Since then, July, she had simply to last the six months as a deacon that are prerequisite for an ordinand to the prieshood. Of course, when I say "simply," it belies the reality of that half-year: hours upon hours of hospital visits to dying patients; sermon-writing; three-plus church services a week at which she officiated; and all of this in addition to her paying work, as Christian Education Director. About ten years, uncountable hours, at least one heartbreak, and the commitment of the remainder of her life to serving as best she can: all this and more went into the two-hour ceremony I went home for this weekend. I couldn't believe more strongly in my mother.

The thing is, I don't believe in God. Not hers or anyone's. I have no problem with my atheism in my day-to-day life and I don't even mind reciting the prayers in church that I learned as a child, on those rare occasions I find myself under a steeple. (Whether I'm justified in my carefree neglect to enlighten my family of my atheism is a matter of internal debate.) But on Saturday I felt like I was approaching some sort of line that shouldn't be crossed - I felt I was being actively deceitful. I was doing more than saying the Lord's Prayer or reading responses to the celebrant's questions of the congregation. I was presenting my mom for ordination, vesting her in a symbolic stole of some kind, and worst of all, asked by the bishop to assemble before the church, with all the family, to be acknowledged. Acknowledged for support for my mom, and - this is where it hurts - as an indication of the fruit of her capacity for spiritual guidance.

I'd fight anyone who suggested that my nonbelief reflected poorly on my mother as a priest or as a Christian, but I felt like a fraud nonetheless. My mother would be saddened but not inconsolable if she knew I was an atheist. Her experiences along the long road to ordination taught me as well as her that other people aren't so difficult to upset. And while they'd be wrong to fault her for it, maybe they'd be right to find me unfit to stand up there. It's the only kind of shame I have about my (lack of) beliefs - it's unjust enough to put me shoulder to shoulder with someone who puts more into a single day than I did into all of college, but far worse to equate my spiritual commitment to her with her spiritual commitment to God.

All in all, though, it was a good weekend. My mother got the official church stamp (seriously! a ribbon stamped with hot red wax to a bonded certificate!) on her calling. I felt a little bit shamed and more than a little humbled, but I could do worse than to feel those things at times. Apparently I needed even more humbling this morning, when I expressed an opinion that wasn't asked for and was called on it. Which didn't exactly spur me to self-examination to the same degree that did witnessing the validation of the most important decision my mother's ever made, but got me thinking anyhow.

an email exchange

Stan: I was noticing in Return of the King that all the humans who fight on the bad side are Arab.

Kate: Yup. That, and all peoples from the east and south are evil. Same in C.S. Lewis's world, much as I hate to admit it - southerners are evil, and basically Arab.

Stan: Or made of playing cards.

Kate: You know that C.S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll are different people, don't you?

Stan: There was a nice way of pointing out my brain fart. Way to steer clear of that way.

Kate: *blogs*

Stan: Wow. I really must reiterate: there's a nice way of pointing out my brain farts, and blogging about it is pretty much right out the window.

Kate: Oh come on, no one will think less of you.

Pause.

Though I guess you'll probably think less of me, huh.

Stan: I'm touching my nose with one finger and pointing at you with the other.

Kate: To clarify: it wouldn't be worth posting if your retort about steering clear of the nice way hadn't been funny.

Stan: In that case, go ahead. Just be clear to point out how funny I am.

filler

The good, the bad, and the just plain weird.

Forgive me, I'm still mourning the accidental smashing of an entire bottle of madeira yesterday. That plus Jude going the way of remarriage are making Kate a dull girl.

leave no evidence, pt. 2

As reported to me by my office accomplice.

Boss: Blah blah blah meeting blah.
Jen: Boss, you have glitter on your face.
Boss: I do?
Jen: Yeah, right under your eye.
Boss: [pause]
Everyone: [pause]
Boss: Kate had glitter on her face. Why do I have glitter on my face?
Jen: GOOD QUESTION, BOSS.
Boss: Whoa. Open mouth, insert foot.

leave no evidence

Boss: Can you send a reminder for that meeting?
Me: Sure.
Boss: Also, can you create a folder on the website for blablabla?
Me: Sure.
Boss: Is that- is that glitter on your face?
Me: [pause]
Boss: [pause]
Me: Are you kidding?
Boss: Is that from New Year's Eve?!
Me: I don't believe this.
Boss: Look how embarrassed you are!