This evening Mom and I attended the Progressive Forum again. 
Tonight the speaker was Karen Armstrong, and she was amazing. Brilliant. Incredibly well-spoken, fun to listen to, grounded in her knowledge, and beautifully eloquent. Plus bonus British accent.
But seriously, I was so moved at times during her lecture, and her answer to one of the questions during the Q&A portion had me choked up.
It reminded me with deep, loving nostalgia of the best of my class in Seminary.

Her talk was about god, in a very early sense of the word. She spoke of traditions having a special language and breathing to discuss god, the concept beyond realization. About finding the moment when one's word become too much and one is reduced to silence and awe. (Like the moment, the beat at the end of a symphony, the breath before the applause begins.)  The goal of the practice is to breathe in the silence, in the presence of that awe.
She spoke of creation stories or cosmologies as therapeutic exercises, guides for personal creativity with an emphasis on personal sacrifice. Never does something come from nothing; something always from something.
She spoke of revelation as an ongoing process. Scripture, in the Rabbinic tradition, as something to be re-interpreted for and by each generation.
She spoke of the complementary relationship in pre-16th century society between logos and mythos. Logos as knowledge, science, the physical reality. Myth as a way to deal with inner issues, emotion, pain, despair, psyche. Myth as a program for action. Religion, she said, is like dancing - a skill requiring practice.  A belief is not enough. And belief as a word did not mean then what it did now, but represented a commitment, love, dedication, a doing.
She spoke of dialogue as a spiritual exercise in the Socratic tradition, its goal to realize the profundity of human ignorance, and from there begin to seek wisdom. She said that one difficulty we have now is that instead of proceeding in the dialogue with gentleness, as Socrates said, these days we feel the need not only to win, to prove our knowledge, but also to humiliate our opponents.
And of course, she spoke of compassion. She is developing a Charter for Compassion online. (See the page at the TED prize about her wish.)

One of the most intriguing and resonant things she said, to me, was about the need for silence.  Specifically inner silence as a place of spiritual revelation and knowing. This reminded me so much of one of the books that was formative to my young spirituality, Sati by Christopher Pike. We are all god, and this can be discovered in silence.

When asked to describe her idea of god:
"I try not to have any ideas of god at all." She does not wish to 'domesticate the transcendence', but to keep it in the realm of music, poetry, etc. She feels intimations of awe and wonder during the day: "I do feel touched within, but what that is I don't know - and it's better not to ask."

At the very end she spoke about hope for the future in the face of so much misunderstanding and upheaval.

In short, it was an awesome evening.

Also, happy happy birthday to my awesome Dad. :)

I've had a rather bad several days, interrupted by some really great stuff.
Been doing art, building furniture, being very depressed, having a great time at work, going to various meetings, being depressed again, calling therapists and doctors, and re-arranging my living quarters.
I got to go to the ancestral home for Mom's birthday on Sunday to play Ticket to Ride: Europe with Mom, my aunt, the scion and Hillary. And then on Tuesday Dad and I went to IKEA for dinner and to pick up the table I wanted. Mom came over yesterday to help me put it together, along with the laptop table and task chair that I'm using now for the computer. It's so much easier to do stuff with a workstation that lets me keep a good posture. Typing on the laptop on the coffee table just was not a winning situation.
Due to my two bouts of severe sorrow, I got behind on my art commitments, so I'm working tonight on finishing the last overdue one.
I'm also watching a DVD that isn't Merlin. Ha, ha, ha, I know.  I've watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Real Genius, and now I'm watching the really awesome episodes of Season 3 of Babylon 5.

OMG my love for Andreas Katsulas as G'kar just swells my heart to bursting.  God, what brilliance. Such a good show... such a loss.
Ok, moment over.

Now I'm having some dessert (angel food cake with strawberries) as a reward for finishing the line art for this overdue piece - with my fanart style, when the line art is final, the piece is 60% done.
Tomorrow I'm home from work, so I'll be finishing up some other obligations, including data entry, and more furniture arranging plus the disposal of all the styrofoam and cardboard.

I'm really having a lot of trouble with my GI stuff - Mom says I need to give myself more credit for dealing with a chronic health problem as well as I have, mostly.  It just got really frustrating for a few days - with all the other stresses, then feeling like I was unable to eat just was a bit of the last straw.  I've got to rethink my habits.  One great thing is that my Wellness Counseling at work has been going really well, including keeping a food diary. That will hopefully help once I can do a bit of analysis. Only another few weeks before I get back in to the gastroenterologist.

Mom's been encouraging me to meditate, and it kind of sort of maybe helps. And I should really do a tarot reading or something. What's all that stuff for if not to offer guidance in times of stress?

Oh, and bonus - despite the stress and stuff, I am happy to say that I still have fingernails.

Now it's back to the drawing board, or in this case the brilliant Wacom tablet.

Happy Birthday to my awesome mom!  :D

Packing, shopping for a bed, figuring out that maybe I'm hypoglycemic in addition to the stomach issues because I almost passed out and was shaking Friday night and had to miss a birthday gathering for a friend because I didn't trust myself to drive.  :(
But Saturday was much better and I watched what I ate and there were birthday people to greet and a party to go to. (Why is almost everybody I know born in March?) Donna and Jon and Lando the Magnificent Walking, Babbling, Playing Boy met me for Donna's birthday lunch, and have now seen my apartment, empty and echoing. Lando christened it with drool and laughter, so yay.

Then I went to my cousin Dave's birthday party, which was a live action role-playing card game called Long Live the King.  It was pretty awesome, although I was still trying to control my headachy symptoms (plus even I get a couple weeks when the pollen wreaks havoc with my sinuses).  I played the Archbishop with a 3-minute Mitre made of construction paper, while there were vast levels of costumery among the other folks.  From simple tunics and capes to full-on Henry VIII style gear, it was a good night for costumes.
I didn't know most of the people there, because this cousin was one of the ones that I used to see only for Christmas each year, if then.  But he's discovered that I'm a geek and a gamer, so now I get invited to these things. :)
It was a fun time, but as with many of these games, I think that the next time it's played, things will go much more smoothly.  Last night we were a bit confused about what we could and could not do, and nobody knew exactly how to win. It always takes at least one round for the players to really grok the strategy.  So, I can only hope we find excuses to play again!

Also, another cousin had a birthday last week (and I should have e-mailed him or something - bad me.) and Peter and Hillary are Tuesday and today, respectively.
March - a popular month for being born.

Today mom and I have made it our mission to buy me a bed, and then I have to get the rest of the assorted misc junk off my floor and shelves and into boxes, because the movers are coming on THURSDAY. Yeep.

I have been caught in a vortex of never-ending meetings/meetups since last week. Not a bad thing necessarily, just so incredibly busy.  And I run from work to class or other meetings or to run important family errands and suddenly my to-do list is a mile longer than usual and I am just tired.
But today is Watercolor class and after that there is nothing but actually catching up on all the work stuff that doesn't involve meetings and no more meetups and then maybe I'll get to breathe because dude Friday is my birthday and I don't want to have any more meetings!  (Although if it doesn't rain I'm hoping for another picnic in the park.)

Also, the cat has been sleeping on my quilt-in-progress and you can all congratulate me on womanfully not throwing things at him to get him to remove himself.  Rowr!

p.s. My presentation went really well!

Happy Birthday to my birthday twins, rosmar and musical_jay and leela_cat(although I didn't realize it was already so late - I may have missed it on Eastern Time)!

This is the "Saint Honoria" cake Peter brought home for me - it's got vanilla and chocolate creme and creme puff pastry topping, plus sugar icing and a lemon cake with lemon filling. Crazy stuff!


My parents gave me three cards - a sentimental one, a Harry Potter one, and a singing Pirates of the Caribbean one. My parents are awesome. Hee. There's a photo of those at Flickr, too.

Rock-n-roll zombie aliens!  Total World Domination!  Imminent Prophecy-Making!
There is a total lunar eclipse on my birthday! (And birthday twins rosmar and musical_jay!)  Triangulated with bright Saturn and Regulus! Great things are in store!

NASA - Total Lunar Eclipse: February 20, 2008:

During the eclipse, the Moon will be in Leo. Saturn and bright star Regulus are only 3 degrees east and west, respectively, of the Moon. Geminii, Orion, Taurus and other winter constellations will occupy the south and western sky for North American eclipse watchers.

Ok, Sam and I have been playing with their Nintendo Wii this evening. I made a Wii Mii - hee!
Wii bowling? Awesome.
Wii golf? Not quite as awesome, but still cool.
Wii WarioWare Smooth Moves? Hysterical!! OMG, the only thing that would make it cooler is a floor panel like with DDR. Mad kung-fu stylin', kitties dancin' with the DJ, weird graphics and totally bizarre games.

Maya is fun and entertaining and has stopped screaming when I come near. We watched the beginning of Cinderella together and later she piled me with dolls. At the birthday party today everybody struck up a chorus with her for "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes." Wild and crazy times, I tell you!
Keet has shown me her CraftBot 6000 (aka the new Bernina) and hoo-boy, it rocks everybody's socks. Especially the doll socks. I did some mad free-motion quilting on it. Fun!
Keet and Sam introduced me to the Flight of the Conchords. Wow. Hip-Hop-opotamus! Rockin'!
Julie came over and we spent almost an hour debating what the cards would be in a Harry Potter tarot deck.
Keet and Sam took me to a beautiful lily pond. Photos to come.
I have written about 140 words on two different projects.

Fun times, peeps. Fun times.

I'm feeling pretty crappy. Sick, congested, etc.
On the brighter side, had family birthday dinner tonight which was fun.
We have a random neighborhood cat visiting us because he or she is apparently lost and crying. Somebody in the house is a pushover for the kittycats.
Rereading Earthsea. It gets better every time.
Tired all the time. Sigh. Fighting off germs is so exhausting.
Haven't done much writing or any drawing in ages. Will have to catch up when healthy.

My office had its February Birthday Party a few minutes ago.  There was a king cake, of course.  Apparently, the girl who got the baby last year in the king cake is pregnant, due in April.  Made the next person to get the baby mighty nervous! 
Now I have an excessive amount of beads, but it's all fun. 

In other news, I read an editor's blog in which the editor, in snarky response to a bad query, states that "unicorn" comes from the Latin uni, one, and the English corn, as in an ear of corn.  And I can't tell whether or not this person is joking in that part.  Alas, the vagaries of the typed word on the intarweb.

The subject line was the conclusion of our Teppanyaki chef, when only Peter and I were able to catch bits of egg, flung at us from his spatula, in our mouths. (Granted, I took two tries.) Everybody else had egg on their face (or shirt, or lap...).
Mom, Dad, and Peter took me out for Birthday Dinner tonight, since Dad is going out of town tomorrow. Mom and Dad even wore Mardis Gras beads. Such good sports. All the servers asked about the beads, so the fact that it was a birthday party came out. My "birthday cake" was the flaming onion volcano - best birthday cake ever! Our chef was excellent, quite funny, and did almost all the tricks I'd ever seen on a hibachi.
It was really nice to get out with Peter, and we made some tentative plans to go to the beach in March.
In other news, I found some really exciting Turkish apple tea, perhaps even the same brand as the stuff I had at the restaurant out on Memorial with Donna and company. I am very pleased. Tea acquisition has once again become a vital part of my day.
Now it's time to do some writing before I lose the entire weekend.

So, in honor of my impending departure from the 20s, Donna and Jon had me over for a fun weekend of birthday stuff. It started with dinner on Friday. I was late getting out to the restaurant from work, and when I arrived I found Donna, Jon, and Mandy at the table and a big pile of Mardi Gras beads on my plate. (Since my birthday is Mardi Gras this year, folks have been trying to make the most of it.) I put on some of the beads and we proceeded to have a lovely dinner, although the service was pretty awful. The food was excellent, and the server made us fresh guacamole right at our table. Heaven.
Saturday dawned with breakfast at the Kolache Factory. Oh, kolaches, how do I love thee? It's been so long!
Then Donna and I went to the mall. We got there just before the bells for the opening (they have a huge clock in one of the courts with loud chimes). Donna was determined to get me made over for my new job, so she had me trying all sorts of things and all sorts of stores I would not normally have gone near. It was a grand time, and I was really pleasantly surprised by how good I looked in some of the things she brought me.
Our whirlwind in the mall ended just after noon, by which time we had bags and bags of goods. It was quite astonishing, really - I don't shop often. Lunch was yummy, then we returned to home base for sorting of purchases and final goodbyes.
I was in traffic on 10 when Mom called - she and Dad were cruising with the top down, headed for IKEA, and did I want to meet them for lunch? My afternoon meeting had just been cancelled, and I was coincidentally right near the IKEA exit, so I ended up spending the afternoon wandering Swedish furniture. That is a very dangerous store, but I got out without getting too much.
Super bonus - when I got home, my computer was here! Yay! Of course, it's a lovely machine, but there is no software to speak of, so Roxanne will continue to be my primary until I get the new one (preliminarily designation: "Ginevra" after my favorite da Vinci) up to snuff.
Yay birthday! And it isn't even really the day until Tuesday!

So right at the moment Mom and Dad are busy painting the den ceiling while watching Puppy Bowl III on Animal Planet. That is so much more worthwhile, in my opinion, than the actual Super Bowl programming.
Last night I went to a party for Becky's boyfriend. He called it his 9th birthday, 20th Anniversary, and had a piñata (filled with little bottles of liquor), a moonbounce house, and fun party favors. I didn't really know anybody, except that the guest of honor had gone to high school with me. I didn't remember him, though. Becky at one point tried to prod my memory, "You remember, after prom, we all went to IHOP, you and Craig, me and Abe, and some other really random people..." I just shook my head. I have no memory of post-prom IHOP. I have few memories of prom, actually.
Anyway, it was a really fun evening, although by the end of it I was falling asleep on Abe's sofa and had to do some wake-up exercises before driving home. I spend a large portion of the party chatting with Becky's sister, who turns out to have a lot of parallel interests and a geeky boyfriend.
Ok, I'm being called into the den to assist with furniture moving. And to check the bowl-cam at Puppy Bowl (it's at the bottom of the water dish).
Fun!

Maya Claire is two today! Hip, hip, hooray! I just want to hug her and squeeze her and call her Maya Claire. . . but I will have to deputize her mom and dad to do that for me, as I am over a thousand miles away. These are the days when we love the (hopefully efficient) US Postal Service.

Happy Birthday, Maya!

Tonight my mom is taking my dad out to a birthday movie, Flyboys. Peter and I want to see it sometime, too, so maybe we'll have a sibling outing. I went down to Webster to the Elemental Magick Shop, where there was a Full Moon Ritual and drum circle. The folks seemed pretty nice and it was interesting. The Moon Ritual was done by druids, which wasn't usual for them but it was a special occasion. The ceremony was lovely and the drum circle afterward was small, but fun. I got to sit right up next to the fire and I knew some of the songs.
I didn't really feel connected to the crowd, but I figure I just need to keep showing up and before too long nobody will remember a time when I wasn't there. Right? Well, we'll see. They seem to have a very good operation going.
After the drumming I headed home and now Peter and I are sitting in the office. He's playing World of Warcraft, and he showed me his character's dance. Then Hillary, playing in their room, showed me her troll's dance. Peter's character is a Tauran, which looks like a big humanoid bull. Its dance is awesome.
I think this counts as "spending time with my brother", right? I can mark another notch on that goal on 43Things.com.
And now, writing!

As of 4:08pm today, I am no longer perfect. Hee. (It's a math joke, folks!) The 28-year-old me is no more. Time to see what 29 has to offer.
I'm doubtless going to be filtering a nice little introspective review of twenty-eight at some point later. Probably not now, as the laptop keyboard I am using is teeny tiny and set to QWERTY so it's doubly hard for me to use. I shall be home from my grand Paoli excursion later this evening, though, and back at my usual workstation.

It has been so fantastic to have a weekend of lazing about in good company, coupled with socializing, writing, reading to baby, learning about the noises the animals make, and enjoying delicious cheese. Mmm, baby. Mmm, cheese.

Today we had a bit of early birthday frolics, including a Carvel ice cream soup. (It was a cake, but it melted.)
It's been an excellent visit, filled with lovely people and relaxation and reading to Maya, who can say my name now. She's been babbling all weekend, in fact, and walking up a storm with the assistance of helpful relaitves or furniture.
Photos will hopefully be forthcoming from Sam. Yay!