A Daughter’s Advice

My mother writes:

“I sent Katie the catalog of hats, scarves, etc. for people who lose their hair and asked her to tell me which ones she liked. Evidently, she didn’t like much, but wrote on the ugliest one, ‘Mom, just buy this one, it will scare the cancer to death.’”

Bright as You

As some of you know, I currently reside with Jason Harrod who I had heard of before I moved to Chapel Hill by virtue of his Harrod and Funck fame. One of the perks of living with a musician who is recording an album is that Tim, Ian and I have been listening to different mixes of Bright as You since early December.

This afternoon the first shipment arrived and is ready to be shipped to the listening masses. My particular favorites are “Messed Up Everywhere Blues” and “When I Fly Away,” which I have in my head at the moment. In my opinion definitely worth the $15.

Since I’m not particularly adept at musical descriptions (or descriptions of music) I’ll let Jason do the honors below.

Jason Harrod: “I’m really happy with this record, and I think you will dig it. It’s a “blues-infused foot-stomping affair,” and I’m backed by a crack group of musicians featuring Phil Madeira (Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, Al Green, Mavis Staples), Kenny Meeks (Sixpence None the Richer), and the bedrock rhythm section of Dennis Holt (Kerry Livgren, Richie Furay) and Chris Donahue (Vigilantes of Love, Fleming and John). The songs range from the straight ahead blues-rock of “Kickin Mule” to the Beatlesque pop of “Bright As You,” to the ambient psychadelic folk of “Goodnight Sunshine.” Phil Madeira produced it.”

“So, what are you waiting for? Can you think of a better way to spend $15.00?”

Bloglines

Recently Elizabeth introduced me to the joys of life with Bloglines. Bloglines is a website which has you enter in the blogs that you normally check and Bloglines checks them for you throughout the day. When someone on your “Your Feeds” list creates a new entry Bloglines highlights their link in bold lettering.

It takes a minute to set up but Bloglines has drastically shortened the amount of time and mental energy I devote to checking people’s blogs. Although I recognize that many people check blogs in order to procrastinate for this procrastinator it is a nice way to still read the blogs I want but spend much less time doing so. This is exactly the kind of efficiency gains technology is supposed to create!

I’ve found Bloglines especially helpful in keeping an eye on infrequent bloggers. The one drawback that I have found is that it doesn�t give an option for new comments notification so if I leave a comment on an entry I have to manually return to the blog to see if anyone has responded to what I said. Also I haven�t figured out how to set up Bloglines to check passworded blogs so those are still checked individually.

But that said, Bloglines lets me check one page instead of 15. That�s 30 minutes of my morning back!

Coming 10.22.05

We have tickets! After much ado, Charity and I have tickets in Pittsburgh for the October 22 U2 show. Awesome!

Traveling Home

On the plane flights back from Nebraska to Chapel Hill Wednesday my library copy of Power and Interdependence contained much that was representative of what is on my mind these days. Inside a political science book that incorporates much of what interests and repels me about political science lay a coupon to fly out and visit Charity in Lincoln followed a few pages later by a tux brochure.

Much of the flight had a surreal feel to it as I stared out the window, as has much of this week. Tonight I’m blogging from my parent’s house in Hendersonville which is filled with fresh-cut daffodils and NCAA brackets. Today is my first full day home since Mom�s breast cancer diagnosis. We don’t know what will happen but we do know that chemo and radiation are in the future. It has been strange mix of normalcy and tears.

A Daily Shot

The emcee of the Christian group I was involved with during my freshman year of college always had an entertaining story to tell us at the start our Tuesday night meetings. People wondered how he had such an interesting life. He maintained that everybody had as interesting a life as he did; he just had a knack for picking out the interesting stories and telling them to others.

That thought came to mind as I checked Ten Years of My Life this morning. I enjoy taking in the pictures on this site. And I like it that 15 seconds of my day are set aside just for the hope of looking at something beautiful.

I admire how the creator of Ten Years of My Life looks for interesting and beautiful shots in everyday life, whether while riding in a car, at the library or just buying flowers. He doesn’t always hit the mark but taking a picture everyday means that he is always noticing, always searching for a cool shot. I think that’s a pretty cool way to live life.

Since he lives on the West Coast it is possible that he lives around more inherent beauty than I do. But still, it gives me hope that there is the same prevalence of beauty and variety in my life if I can have a mindset to notice it.

Journaling in Sarajevo

From my late summer trip to Sarajevo last year.

Composting

I just finished Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer this afternoon as I sat in the �abundant sunshine� that is raining down on Chapel Hill today. As I finished it I went back through the book and skimmed over the different ideas that I found interesting and thoughtful as he talked about vocation.

What I noticed today as I sketched into my books-I-have-read notebook the titles of a couple of recent reads is that my reading has declined over this last school year. Since I started keeping a list of what I have been reading in 1999 I have stuck the date each book is finished off to the side. I get a kick out of reading back over the list because it gives me a way to think about the patterns of my life, about what I was reading when I was different places. I always read more over breaks but since August I�ve only read four non-political science books.

I think that this lack of narrative input has impoverished me a good bit. I value having a stories and thoughts, plots and characters, composting in the back of my head. I love being drawn into other stories and soaring or plummeting into different worlds.

Feeling to guilty about spending the time to read outside of class is one reason I resent being a grad student. I miss both the activity and the rewards of reading good fiction.

Adjectives

Here’s some of the vocabulary I’ve encountered recently:

antipodean - adj – from the parts of the earth diametrically opposite

“These two broad groups were typical of those whose economic activities were not in their countries� comparative advantage. Relatively inefficient farmers, especially in Europe, were suffering at the expense of New World, Russian, and antipodean farm products.

obstreperous – adj – marked by unruly or aggressive noisiness

“In the mean time the League Council might have at lest functioned as a kind of European directorium, very much as the Concert of Europe did at its zenith, but for the fatal unanimity rule which set up the obstreperous small state as the arbiter of world peace.”

seigneurial - adj – of or relating to a lord, especially a feudal lord

“The nature of the institutional nucleus is indifferent: it may be sex as with the patriarchal family, locality as with the village settlement, or political power as with the seigneurial manor.”