Lent is coming

I haven't really planned on anything for Lent. I see a few of my friends are going (mostly) Twitter-free, and....I'm not sure that would have the desired effect on me. I have contemplated redoubling the healthy eating plan, after falling off it during the protracted period of cold and rainy weather.

I am right now leaning towards trying to re-institute some regular-devotional-reading rule; that seemed to be good when I did it some years back. Or maybe set a timer for fifteen or thirty minutes a day and spend that time in quiet and contemplation.

(I also really need to get back to doing 2-3 Pomodoros per day of reading research stuff/working on writing, but that's more "secular" and I'm not sure I could count that).

I don't know. Lent was not really a thing in my family growing up (the congregation we belonged to didn't make much of it). So as an adult coming to it I may have a different perspective. To me, doing things merely as a "penance" (all my friends in school who gave up chocolate), especially given what I saw as the "lawyerballing" ("Sundays in Lent aren't part of Lent" they'd say, and some of them ate more chocolate on that Sunday than they would otherwise) didn't make a lot of sense. I suppose the idea was cutting out something you felt had power over you, and....I don't exactly feel like the way I eat has "power" over me (given that I can go stretches without chocolate, or meat, or whatever).  I mean, I guess everyone should do what they need to do but I prefer something that either improves me (as the contemplation probably would) or helps the world (one year, I think my brother and his family gave up meat, but put aside the money they would have budgeted for it - meat is costlier than beans and even cheese - and donated it to a food pantry). I'm not quite sure I'm prepared to do that this year but maybe some year I will do it. Or I could give up restaurant meals - though usually I only eat one or two a month to begin with, so it's not much of a sacrifice.

I've thought about maybe not buying yarn for Lent, and donating the money I would have spent somewhere, that's another idea. (Also improves me in that maybe I get a few more things out of the stash. Because yeah, I think giving up something like knitting for Lent would be massively counterproductive.)

When I was a kid, Fat Tuesday wasn't as much of a thing, either. Where I grew up, the main heritages people had were Slavic/Polish or German or WASP. Many of the WASP people were very secular and didn't really do much; the Scots or English-heritage people did Pancake Day and the Slavic and Polish people did paczki, which are a delicious sort of jelly donut kind of thing. Same idea, really: use up the butter and eggs on one last carby "fling" before 40 days of eating more abstemiously. (Possibly some of the Germans did "Fastnachts," which were similar to paczki?).


I remember - as I've said before - when I was a grad student at ISU, some of my undergrad cohort driving down to New Orleans (which, holy cow, that's far. Farther than it would be for me to drive home to my parents, and I'd split that over two days). They'd go down on the weekend, usually spend Monday and Tuesday there (partying) and then somehow drive back on Wednesday. I had a LOT of hungover looking people in my late-week labs, and often had people asking for "excused absences" which I just rolled my eyes at because *really*? Excused absence is for "My grandmother is in the hospital and it's not clear if she's going to make it so I need to go to say my goodbyes in case" or "I have a stomach virus I do not want to transmit to the rest of the class." Not for "I wanna go party." I usually told them that they could go, but it would count as an unexcused absence, because that's not what excused absences were for. They usually went anyway....

I don't think what Mardi Gras has become - lots of drinking, lots of noise, the thing of flashing-for-beads - is something I could enjoy. I have read a few smaller cities in Louisiana do ones that they describe as "family friendly," which I presume means "mostly a big parade and food and music" and THAT would be fun for me. Maybe someday I will do it...probably in retirement, as Mardi Gras always seems to fall at a time when I'm in class. (It could never be late enough to fall over spring break). Or, maybe, some very not-busy semester, go the weekend before, if there are weekend things...

But anyway. Pancake Day is more my style, and honestly, it is pretty much my heritage: as much as we ever do any "ethnic" cooking in my family, it is from my mom's English or Scots ancestors (Christmas dinner is pretty much the English feast). (Or German, but Fastnachts take way more work than pancakes do).

Some years past I've made them at home but this year I will get them made for me, and also will get to enjoy them with other people, which is nice. And tomorrow night is the rare evening church service, which is also special. (We don't do a whole lot in the DOC for Ash Wednesday; I remember when I was in college my classmates who were Catholic went out to early Mass and had the spot of ashes on their foreheads for the rest of the day. I suppose now, the world being what it is, some places that would get them harassed....)


***

And just a quick instance of My Stupid Brain and how I sometimes dream things I sorta wish were real.

I was at a dance. I had gone "stag," because that's unfortunately how I roll in the real world (not that I go to dances) but at least I was part of a friend-group. And when people did start pairing up and couple-dancing, a guy who was kind of on the fringe of our friend group (Not someone I know in real life, but, I guess they say your brain modifies familiar faces to populate your dreams? He looked a little bit like a scruffier version of Paul Schneider ("Brandanowicz" on Parks and Recreation - and yeah, I had been watching a couple episodes last evening, and of all of the guys in there, he'd be the one I'd be attracted to....though I will say Nick Offerman has some pretty nice beefy arms, and yeah, I notice that about a guy). Anyway, in the dream,. that character was kind of on the fringes of the friend group because while he was nice enough and all, he was a little dim, and the rest of us were mostly academics. Anyway, the music started and I was standing there going "okay fine so I guess I don't dance" and then he came up to me and kind of held out his hands like "hey, I don't have a partner either, so let's dance?" and I figured "why not?" and it turned out he was a pretty good dancer even if he didn't talk much. (And it was some kind of weird retro party thing: he was dressed a little like Bowser from Sha-Na-Na, if you remember that show. And that's where I might have got the "lovable lunkhead" trope part of it, though IIRC the guy who played "Bowser" is actually pretty smart and became like an attorney or something?) But anyway - people were sort of doing that athletic style of dancing from the 40s and the 50s, with lifts and everything, and I was thinking, "Oh, he won't even try to lift me, I'm too heavy" but at the end of the song he picked me up bodily* and I protested that he shouldn't, I was too heavy for him, and he said "but I wanted you to feel special, too" and then very gently set me down on one of the chairs at the little tables they had arranged around for people taking a break from dancing.

(*And in the world of the dream, I didn't take this as any kind of violation of my autonomy or anything - I was thrilled, but I also didn't want him to hurt himself hefting me, because I am not a small woman)

And dangit. I was a little sad when I woke up because yeah, I just want that kind of simple fun interaction where you're just having FUN with someone and there isn't all the weird stupid dating stuff that has been the bane of my very limited dating existence - not knowing how to read signals, or someone wanting to move "faster" than you do, or not-knowing "hey is this a date or is this just hanging out with someone who will only ever be a platonic friend*"

(*I think once or twice I wound up hanging out with a guy who was either using me as a "beard" or was questioning his orientation, because I seemed "safe" to him. I mean, it's nice that people like that feel 'safe' with me, but also once or twice I thought there was potentially more to the relationship than what he was thinking...)

But yeah. Sometimes I feel like trying to date now would be....ludicrous for me. But I also just want people to hang out with, and maybe even do kinda-sorta romantic things, but....yeah. You have to take the horror-stories with the fun and I'm not sure I'm ready for the horror-stories.