first from glasshouseslive

When you see this, quote Monty Python.  If you hate Monty Python, when you see this, please quote your favorite Britcom instead.  If you hate all Britcoms without exception or moderation in degree, quote something you do find funny.

Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.  Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.  ... You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!  ... I mean, if I went around sayin' I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!  ... Ah!  Now we see the violence inherent in the system!  COME AND SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM!  Help! help! I'm being repressed!  ... That's what I'm on about!  Did you see him repressing me?  You saw it, didn't you?

what is't o'clock?

thought today's MPhil thesis presentation was 10-11 am.  got to the department at 9:55 (itself an impressive feat) to learn that in fact it's advanced syntax tomorrow that's 10-11, and the thing today is 10:30-12.  [headdesk.]  cheerfully spend the next half-hour on a department computer (whose internet cache has since been emptied) beginning to work out what i'm prepared to offer for yuletide.  not a waste of time at all!

then the gym, and then two dreary meetings right in a row, and now more yuletide before i go off to sing a special wednesday edition of evensong, for all souls' day.  whew!  busy busy fox.

random things that amuse me

there's really no reason it should, but it amuses me (on a sixth-grade level, i suppose) that the st hilda's college crest has unicorns on it.

:-)

FA LA LA LA LA

have completed yuletide signup!

had to keep notes to be referred to in the event of a ctrl-click mishap; so i am now in a position to tell you that i offered thirty-seven fandoms (5 with character specifications and 32 without), beating last year's effort, when according to my e-mail confirmation i offered eight.  i can't tell if that means i'm waaay more adventurous, or if it means there were that many new fandoms i'm familiar with this year.  (all 8 of last year's are among this year's 37, for what it's worth.)  also, there were some duplicates, so i've actually offered (i think) 35 distinct fandoms; also also, there were just a few more that i recognized and know vaguely but decided i don't know well enough to write in them.  (there were still more that i recognize by name but that's it.  we will not consider them.)

i have requested As You Like It (Touchstone and Jaques, though not necessarily Touchstone/Jaques), Pride and Prejudice (Darcy/Bingley; 'in want of a wife', indeed), Hamlet (Hamlet, Horatio, and/or Laertes), or The Truman Show (how messed up is that Christof, yo?).

letter to santa will surely be forthcoming once the assignments are handed out.  i should maybe also have requested someone to write my thesis for me!  :-D

all souls

man, nothing like being in church when half the choir is in tears, eh?

the first non-bible reading tonight was from this article:

The lists were limitless.  First of all, a cooking rota was drawn up, allocating each of us a night of the week to make supper, assisted by a meal plan compiled by our mother.  ... Some of her lists addressed mundane practicalities:  what to buy for the weekly shop, when to see the dentist.  Then there were the one-off categories:  who to send Christmas cards to, where to buy birthday presents.  Page by page, the anatomy of her entire life was broken down into series of meticulous, precise instructions.  ...

There were also lists for the life she wouldn't see and would have to guess at.  There were her notes on hypothetical motherhood, anticipating needs of teenagers she would never know, and so by necessity they were endlessly contingent; if such-and-such were to happen to her second son, say, then so-and-so might be a good person to ask for help, and so on.

She worried about the novels we might not read, and drew up a list of recommendations for each child, with a suggested age at which each might best be introduced.  She thought I would like EM Forster.  ...

When our mother became ill, it was naturally understood that information about her illness would be shared with all of us.  The nature of cancer was carefully explained, as was the likely course of her gradual decline.  We were warned that the man who delivered her oxygen tanks to the house had an unnerving tendency to drop to his knees and pray at her bedside, and that we weren't to laugh or be alarmed.  She explained that were one of us to argue with her, and she were to die that night, we weren't to feel guilty or worry about it.  After she'd died, we might imagine that we saw her, or heard her voice, but that was quite normal, and nothing to fear.  ...

So well-prepared were we for these eventualities that when none materialised, I think I felt mildly disappointed.  The narrative of tragedy taking place in our home, as our mother grew sicker, had been superseded by a meta-narrative about the triumph of knowledge over fear. We were led to understand that some families kept terminal illness a secret, their children deceived into thinking the dying parent would get better.  But we were blessed with the truth, and the implication seemed to be that we therefore had nothing to fear. Information would conquer all.  ...

Our mother told us everything about her death, except that it devastated her, and everything about dying, except that it would break our hearts.  She couldn't tell the unbearable truth that her death was a disaster from which we would never recover, no matter how many lists she wrote.

and it's two years tomorrow since my aunt died, so i'll tell you what -- i held it together through the anthem, but through the next couple of readings and the prayers, i buried my face in my hands and wept.  i could hear other choir members sniffling around me, as well; we'd all just about collected ourselves in time for the next hymn, which was 'abide with me' and did nothing useful for anyone's composure.