Some random things

* They say deaths come in threes. I dunno, but:

- Retired Baptist minister who had been a very good friend of my (Disciples of Christ) congregation.

- Glenna, the woman I wrote about yesterday

- The sister-in-law of our organist.

As our secretary said in church today: "It's been a WEEK."

* Dr. G. (the retired minister)'s memorial service is next Saturday. I had gotten an e-mail from the secretary midmorning yesterday saying "2 pm Saturday" and I thought it meant yesterday, and not only was I in slobby clothes (flannel pajama pants and an old t-shirt) and I had a headache and I so didn't feel like going out, so I wound up saying to myself "there will be hundreds of people there given who he was; you won't be missed" but felt slightly bad (I had worked somewhat closely with him on a few things after the church split in 2003). I will probably go next week; I can schedule it in and also I have the following Monday (the 21st) off because of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

* I think I found a sort of New Year's Resolution: to try to finish up some of the longterm projects I have going:

- The quilt currently in the frame
- Celestarium
- The Owl sweater
- The handpieced hexagon top, or at least work more on it (I keep buying bits and pieces of fabric for it, but haven't sewn on it in a long time

* I started up piano practice (on my own; lessons won't start back up until March). I tried a bit refreshing some of the pieces I had played before but that felt unsatisfying so I pulled out my book of Mendelssohn pieces and looked around. I started on the VERY LAST of the Songs without Words in there, one dubbed "Faith." (Apparently Mendelssohn didn't name most of his pieces but they have picked up names through the years from various publishers.) I like it. It DOES sound hymnlike; some of the chords and how the tune progresses is reminiscent of a hymn.

(Mendelssohn was born to a Jewish family but when he was fairly young his parents converted to Lutheranism, though I have also read this was more to avoid the prejudices others had at that time or his father's rebelling against his grandfather, than out of a deep conviction. I don't know. Then again, Mendelssohn apparently wrote some music for not just the Lutheran church (which he was baptized into) but the Anglican and Catholic churches. However, apparently he was seen as "too Jewish" in Germany of the 1930s, and his music was not played. The stupidity of prejudice: Mendelssohn has over time become one of my favorite composers and some of his piano compositions are great, because they are not overly-complicated for a not-very-advanced pianist, but are still interesting and meaningful to play)

* And one of those storm-in-a-teapot things. Not gonna go into too much detail, but naive blogger writes about an impending overseas trip to a culture different from ours, and presumably (I could not read the whole blogpost, it was very longwinded. And for me, that's saying a lot) she dipped into sort of what would be called Orientalist attitudes, and....well, hackles are up all over the place. From what I did read? I got the sense of someone who was somewhat naive and maybe provincial and...didn't intend malice.

And you know? I try hard to be a person of good will but at times I fear that I may say something someone may be offended by, when I don't intend offense, but because I am awkward and maybe naive about some things....and, I don't know. I'm not saying this well but I think in our concern about avoiding insulting people that we don't drive away people who misspeak when there are people out there who are speaking in ways meant to be intentionally hurtful....and I don't know. 

I've also known people who "talked a good game" in the sense of saying the currently-accepted thing, but who also had a cruel streak in how they actually treated individual people....and I'd hate to see people like that getting a pass because they know the "right words" while someone who said something "the wrong way" while having no ill-intention in their heart gets driven out of a community before they have much of a chance...

I don't know the answer to it. I feel like our culture is going through a crisis right now where some people who might be people of goodwill are a little afraid to speak lest they bring offense, even inadvertently, and yet at the same time, some people who have a history of being quite terrible to others feel even more empowered to lash out and cause hurt, and it seems to remind me of the old line from "The Second Coming" about the best lacking all conviction and the worst being full of passionate intensity.

("The Second Coming" is one of those poems that I learned young and that keeps finding its way into my brain over the past few years)

* Classes start tomorrow. You might ask, am I ready?

I dunno. Not real eager to go back to the "very early to rise and early to bed" schedule, not real eager about all of a sudden having to deal with lots of people again.

(And apparently this (nb: a few swears) is the origin of that meme)

Gonna have to be disciplined tonight and try to get into bed around 8:30 or so, and also read something restful (I restarted Butler-Bass' "Gratitude" last night - it had been long enough since I had stopped reading it I had lost the thread, and I really wanted to think about it more). I'm also reading "The 12.30 to Croydon" which is one of those vintage British mysteries - it's an odd one, because unlike most where the murder happens and you're in the dark (unless you guess it) until the reveal near the end, here you see the murder but then WHAT LED UP TO IT in the sense that you know the murderer long before the police do. And while I find it an interesting trope, and it's definitely different - I find the whole thing gives a very nightmarish and claustrophobic sense, which may have been the author's intent.

I mean, once or twice in my life I've had nightmares about killing someone - in both cases, unintentionally (once: I dreamed I hit someone who ran out in front of my car, in the other, it was having fed someone something they were allergic to without my realizing it in time. In both cases I tried to cover it up because....I don't know why. If someone runs out in front of your car and you hit them, it will ultimately go better for you if you stop and try to get them help than if you keep driving) and that was bad enough. But here, the murderer knows what he's doing and plans it out (poisoning his rather-awful but rich uncle, because he needs money and figures his uncle won't die in time and also knows said uncle won't give him money) and all the terrible things leading up to it (all the precautions he takes to avoid detection, and you KNOW they're all going to be for naught). Right now, it's at the point of his uncle having died, and he's going through the psychological torture of "wait, do the cops really suspect me?" (the poison was found) with a side-order of "I did this horrible, horrible thing" and yeah. Like I said, an interesting book but not exactly *enjoyable* or *relaxing* reading (and again: "do books always have to spark joy?" heh.)