Thursday, November 25, 2010

give me things that don't get lost...

My birthdays are never epic, but this one's been especially good for not having much going on... not stressing about dead ends, not euphoric with potential. Played a game of Risk with my sister & dad and lost, finding delicious irony in the fact that U2's "War" is playing in the background because that's the one album the three of us can agree on.

Got some voicemail serenades, some sweet text messages and phone calls, and a whole lot of facebook love for what it's worth. People ask me if I feel bad that the holiday overshadows my birthday but it's just so good to see everyone and then when the cousins and the rest of the family converge, it's just such a good time having everyone there.

27 years old now, housesitting on the east side watching an ailing kitty for some friends who are out of town, hoping that she's ok because while I enjoy animals, I don't know much about taking care of sick ones. I'm making sure she's eating and drinking and such, hoping that she'll be all right.

Ate too much homemade cranberry sauce tonight and drank too much coffee, had the usual wine and conversation involving the usual cocktail of politics and religion and evidently one of my distant cousins traced back my Anglo side to 1066 and was unhappy with the presence of French blood a thousand years ago, though I highly doubt anyone's pure anything, with all the invading and raping and pillaging that went on way back when between the Vikings and Genghis Khan and whoever.

Besides, everyone's probably related somehow if you go back far enough and never mind that got mixed with the Irish two generations ago and with the Polish in my parents' case and who knows what with the next group of kids.

If it wasn't raining so hard I'd go back over to the west side to hang out with some of my friends who have no family here and will be up late, but I'm just going to chill here, read, journal a bit, drink some tea, listen to Neil Young. I don't need much to get by and this is beautiful and good.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

happy b-day, that's still one of my favorite songs. my dad had to lecture us the other day (he just retired from teaching so is lacking an audience to talk at) on our neanderthal dna how's that for going back and going on and on? what are you reading these days? i just started zero history by w. gibson and so far so good.

that girl said...

I've been bad enough trying to get through my Latin American History textbook this semester, but my hopefully lunchbreak and winter reading includes "Women of Byzantium" loaned to me by a coworker, 'Fordlandia' about Henry Ford's attempt to build a utopian town in the Amazon, some travelogues about the Silk Road & Samarkand. Pablo Neruda's poetry, some writings on the Brazilian Tropicalia movement, an anthology of Falasha writings (Ethiopian Jewish Tradition), trying to get through "Midnight's Children," Octavia Butler's "Kindred," reading a biography of Walker Percy, Flannery O'Connor, Dorothy Day & Thomas Merton called 'The life you say may be your own" that is VERY good.

There's more. I can't remember them all but being in an environment with access to books and people who read stuff that's interesting means that I tend to overdose on information frequently.

What about you?

Anonymous said...

didn't know that you are in school,that's quite a list you have there, i'll have to check out "the life you say" i went thru a percy reading jag in my 20s and came to merton and day thru one of the berrigan brothers who also introduced me to the work of thich nhat hanh. just read two richard powers books generosity and the echomaker which were pretty good. i also read/edit for a number of academic folks so lots of philo/theo articles and some dissertations.

that girl said...

I'll have to check those out!

I just take one class a semester because it's free for me (being an academic peon) and it's for personal curiosity more than working towards another degree. It also gives me a bus pass which saves me a whole lot of cash and hassle.

The last two were on Ethiopia (there's an Amharic speaking congregation at my church) and Swahili (used to tutor kids who spoke it).

Next semester, they're offering Tamil Music & Poetry, the early Middle Ages (from the fall of the Roman Empire to AD 1000), several African history courses, and some Shakespeare. I'm having a hard time deciding.

Anonymous said...

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