Salon Coup de Grace

God save the King! You may have noted that there have not been many posts as of late, and the above picture shows the reason why: I have been locked away for a few weeks doing nothing but sleeping, eating, and breathing the English Regency. My first all-original murder party, Salon Coup de Grace went off smashingly. Thirty-seven of my closest friends and relatives dressed up in fantastic costumes and traveled to the desert to play a part, and I couldn't be more grateful. Good food, good drink, and good fun were had by all, I hope. I'm putting this up so that they all can see some of the wonderful pictures of the event.

Before we jump into that, though, some thanks:

• To the amazing, efficient, and terrific serving staff (Holly, Tim, Synnove, Arlene, and all those who pitched in), a tremendous debt of gratitude is owed you. The service was astounding, and your help invaluable. (And a special thanks to Holly and Tim for photographic services: all the photos in this post are samples of their exhaustive work.)


• To my unbelievably wonderful wife, for putting up with all this, as well as crafting a dozen costumes and filling in for a missing guest at very nearly the last minute.


• To my in-laws for allowing us the use of their church basement (I've had several requests to hold the next party at the same location), decorating, support services, and your many other assistances.


• To all those who came and did such fabulous work bringing to life the strange parts I cast you in, and most especially those who came in late in the process to plug holes in the cast list—you are all deceitful scoundrels, and bless you.


• And a few specifics: To Jen, for helping dress our Prince Regent so splendidly, as well as that rascally Samuel Coleridge and your own Jane Austen-y goodness; to Devin, our stout Prince, for taking on a giant role with aplomb, and for creating most of the bad poetry we endured during the "recitation," my favorite of which was certainly Coleridge's "Harry the Hun: An Opium Fit" ("The shadow of the dome of pleasure / Crouched midway on the waters; / Where was heard the mingled measure / From the alley and the squatters. / It was a miracle of splendiferous glee, / A sunny pleasure-dome with girls for free!"); to Ernie for his lovely dueling pistols; and to Anna, for taking on the extremely demanding role of our Princess Consort, faking out everyone with her displays of "emotion," and her special companion who followed closely behind her all evening (and I do stress the word behind...).

I could take all day to thank each individual for all that he and/or she contributed (if you met Coleridge or Hamilton Blackwell, you understand why I use that particular conjunctive connection), but I imagine most of you wish to see those pictures, so here they are. I will have all of them uploaded and will send out an email to the attendees soon if you wish copies for yourself—there are nearly 250 pictures in total, so there are many more than you see here. And, if you got some good shots, feel free to share those as well.

On we go:


Our Walter Scott seems distrustful of his professional rival, Lord Byron.


It is I, Samuel Hulce, giving some sage advice to that dastardly publishing agent, Sebastian Hurst.


The Duke of Marlborough, that famous collector of books, speaks with the up-and-coming Jane Austen; Ann Radcliffe stands aloof in the background.

Your host and literary patron, George Augustus Frederick IV, the Prince Regent.


Caroline, the Princess Consort and her paramour, Sir William Sidney Smith.


Bridget, Kendal, and Morgan, your lovely servers for the evening.


Coleridge and William Wordsworth, deep in discussions about their next set of poems, no doubt. (Most likely trying to remember who wrote which one...)


Isabella Seymour-Conway, the devious Marchioness of Hertford, has a pointed chat with that revolutionary Irish poetess, Rhianna Allardyce.


The Viscountess Castlereagh and the Whig politician Henry Brougham, whose illicit affair got them ejected from the soirée by the Prince Regent (prompting much commentary about pots and kettles and their relative states of blackness...).


Percy Shelley and his admirer, the Gothic writer Eleanor Sleath. Percy's poem, "Defending the Greatest Mind of the World; or, What I Am Thinking," was a highlight of the evening.


The Foreign Secretary, George Canning, in consultation with that indomitable Scottish publisher, Archibald Constable, perhaps discussing the Tory politics of which they are both devotees.


The Princess Consort and "friend of Scott" Susan Ferrier, throwing daggers with their eyes.


William Lane, founder of the Minerva Press, in negotiations with Baron Alvanley, probably to produce a series of salacious Gothic novels based on the Baron's life.


Anna Barbauld (progenitor of English children's literature), Regina Roche (popular Gothic writer), and Maria Fitzherbert (secret Catholic wife of the Prince Regent!) in their finery. Many thanks to them for all their work behind the scenes, as well.


The doughty Duke of Wellington looking after the defense of the nation by talking to the reigning queen of the Gothic novel, Ann Radcliffe.


That mysterious Hamilton Blackwell trying to get himself a publisher; the Prince Regent naps in the background.


And the three old pals. This look really represents my mental state by the end of all that writing.

A few other shots, just for fun:















Thank you once again, all who came—it was a splendid night, and if you all had just half as much fun as I did, then I enjoyed it twice as much as you.

Edit: I added the last few photos to try to correct my egregious oversight in not including a picture of everyone. I think I have each person covered now; and the last picture should suggest my reaction to further complaints about being left out...

Speak It, Brother

Since I seem to be having a hard time getting my own words down on the ol' blog, I thought I'd offer someone else's.

This popped up over on Snopes.com. It's a bit over 20 years old, so I'm not sure why it's only coming up now, but I think it's pretty fantastic. It's chunk of a commencement speech Ted Koppel gave at Duke University, generally on the subject of how inane, banal, and frankly dangerously inaccurate the media had become back in 1987. (Ah, quaint old 1987, when someone as innocuous as Vanna White was a sex symbol—in fact, the speech is about the "Vannatizing" of the media.) I was shocked to find out this actually was accurately attributed to him, and though he was never my favorite news anchor (give me that sterling, dreamy Peter Jennings any day...), I have a much greater respect for him now.

Some of the best bits:

Look at MTV or Good Morning America and watch the images and ideas flash past in a blur of impressionistic appetizers. No, there is not much room on TV for complexity. You can partake of our daily banquet without drawing on any intellectual resources; without either physical or moral discipline. We require nothing of you; only that you watch; or say that you were watching if Mr. Nielsen's representative should call. And gradually, it must be said, we are beginning to make our mark on the American psyche. We have actually convinced ourselves that slogans will save us. "Shoot up if you must; but use a clean needle." "Enjoy sex whenever with whomever you wish; but wear a condom."

No. The answer is no. Not no because it isn't cool or smart or because you might end up in jail or dying in an AIDS ward—but no, because it's wrong. Because we have spent 5,000 years as a race of rational human being trying to drag ourselves out of the primeval slime by searching for truth and moral absolutes. In the place of Truth we have discovered facts; for moral absolutes we have substituted moral ambiguity. We now communicate with everyone and say absolutely nothing. We have reconstructed the Tower of Babel and it is a television antenna. A thousand voices producing a daily parody of democracy; in which everyone's opinion is afforded equal weight, regardless of substance or merit. Indeed, it can even be argued that opinions of real weight tend to sink with barely a trace of television's ocean banalities.

Our society finds Truth too strong a medicine to digest undiluted. In its purest form Truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder; it is a hallowing reproach.

What Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai were not the Ten Suggestions, they are Commandments. Are, not were.

The sheer brilliance of the Ten Commandments is that they codify, in a handful of words, acceptable human behavior. Not just for then or now but for all time. Language evolves, power shifts from nation to nation, messages are transmitted with the speed of light, man erases one frontier after another; and yet we and our behavior, and the Commandments which govern that behavior, remain the same. The tension between those Commandments and our baser instincts provide the grist for journalism's daily mill. What a huge, gaping void there would be in our informational flow and in our entertainment without routine violation of the Sixth Commandment. Thou shalt not murder...

When you think about it, it's curious, isn't it. We've changed in almost all things—where we live, how we eat, communicate, travel; and yet, in our moral and immoral behavior we are fundamentally unchanged.

Jesus summed it up: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So much for our obligations towards our fellow man. That's what the last five Commandments are all about.

The first five are more complex in that they deal with figures of moral authority. The Fifth Commandment requires us to honor our father and mother. Religious scholars through the years have concluded that it was inscribed on the first tablet among the laws and piety toward God because, as far as their children are concerned, parents stand in the place of God. What a strange conclusion! Us in the place of God. We, who set such flawed examples for you. And yet, in our efforts to love you, to provide for you, in our efforts to forgive you when you make mistakes, we do our feeble best to personify that perfect image of love and forgiveness and Providence which some of us find in God.

Which brings me to the First and, in this day and age probably the most controversial of the Commandments, since it requires that we believe in the existence of a single and supreme God. And then, in the Second, Third, and Fourth Commandments, prohibits the worship of any other gods, forbids that his name be taken in vain, requires that we set aside one day in seven to rest and worship Him. What a bizarre journey; from a sweet, undemanding Vanna White to that all-demanding jealous Old Testament God.

There have always been imperfect role models; false gods of material success and shallow fame; but now their influence is magnified by television. I caution you, as one who performs daily on that flickering altar, to set your sights beyond what you can see. There is true majesty in the concept of an unseen power which can neither be measured nor weighed. There is harmony and inner peace to be found in following a moral compass that points in the same direction, regardless of fashion or trend.

Amen. My guess is that Mr. Koppel isn't of the mind that things have radically improved since then...

Me, Me, Meme!

My own sister didn't "tag" me, but Beth did, and since she took me to eat a delicious skillet and to the airport this past weekend, I guess I owe her something...

4 Jobs I Have Had

• Newspaper Delivery Man


• House Painter


• Legal Assistant


• Pot Boy at Camp O-Ongo

4 Movies I Watch Over and Over

• The Lord of the Rings trilogy (I sense a theme here amongst our blogs...)


• Anything Mystery Science Theater 3000


• The Adventures of Baron Munchausen


• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

4 Places I Have Lived

• Cheney, WA


• Toronto, ON, Canada


• London, England


• Running Springs, CA

4 Shows I Watch

• The Colbert Report


• The Simpsons


• Deadwood


• Corner Gas

4 Places I Have Been

• The Dark Place Inside My Own Soul


• Thousand Island Lake (No, there was no salad dressing there.)


• Bruges, Belgium


• Edinburgh, Scotland

4 People Who E-mail Me

• Devin of Parkerburgh


• Chris of Slatertown


• Dan of Bloomeropolis


• Various companies offering me all-natural male enhancement

4 Favorite Things to Eat

• One of each, please


• Fetuccini Alfredo


• Anything Chinese


• Chicken fried steak and eggs

4 Places I Would Rather Be

• On my own land in the Pacific Northwest


• In my writing shed, just beyond my log home


• On the Pacific Crest Trail


• In Idaho, visiting the sister

4 Things I Look Forward to This Year

• Finishing my novel


• God's unequivocal and detailed description of my calling


• Vacationing up to Idaho, visiting friends along the way


• Salon Coup de Grace

4 People To Tag

• My lovely wife, if she had a blog...


• Diametral Pitch


• Where Is My Mind? (Even though she probably won't see this, or have time to respond...)


• Princess of Bob ('cause she likes this kind of thing)

That Sinking Feeling

The old blog has been the victim of my general malaise the last week or two. Really, there's nothing wrong at all, but I'm feeling rather overwhelmed with the quantity of work that needs doing in the short term here. And, as always, my reaction to having a lot of work to do is to do none of it. Avoidance is my dance partner, and I know all her steps.

It also strikes me as odd that even the most hopeful and exciting projects intimidate me. I wouldn't have thought that old saw about being afraid of success would apply to me, but I begin to suspect that it might. Part of that comes from the balancing act between the things I desire to do and those I am required to do. I can't happily dive into writing the murder party or my novel while I still have all the course planning and organization to do, and I put off those because I don't really want to do them. The wise man would perform the work of his vocation in order that he might pursue his avocation, but a wise man I am not. Nor one with any willpower or work ethic.

But away with such gloomy thoughts! I recognize this as self-defeating and a kind of attack, and I recognize, too, that greater things are within me (and, far more importantly, greater is He that is within me). Would that I had whatever it is that makes people good workers, but I seem to be lacking that particular brain clockwork.

In other matters, I spent the weekend gaming with the Parkers, which was terrific; haven't gotten a face-to-face roleplaying fix since they were out for Christmas a couple of years ago. Many snacks were consumed and many very strange jokes were cracked, and that was good.

Now to get to that work, and get back up the mountain before the next installment of snow arrives. Maybe I'll put down my thoughts on that next time out. Oh—and using my own chainsaw for the first time yesterday. (The power! The absolute power!)

Eeep

So the "every day" thing rather fell apart here during the first week of the semester. This is partly due to the craziness at the opening of the year, and especially because I am wrangling an extra class this time around. With three online courses, I'm answering at least 33% more email about which server the class is on, passwords and logging in problems, and people desperate to add the class. Some of these are quite rude.

The other part is... I'm not even sure. The feeling of being in a moment of transition is strong on me right now. And with a great many projects all crying out for attention (the novel, the murder party, setting up new web sites for my classes, and a double handful of other things), putting the house back in order and still generally getting back on track after the holidays... It's madness.

I'm going to take a bit of time this afternoon to unplug from everything and just sit with God for a while. I think I need it to stop my brain spinning. That would be good.

Perhaps Sanity?

Just dropping in to fulfill my contractually obligated blog post. It's been crazy. Actually, it's been pretty crazy, as Joanna points out, since December 27th. (We took December 26th off to recover from the pre-Christmas craziness, you see.) On Wednesday the carpet got finished up and we spent the balance of the day putting the house back together. It looks fantastic, but we were wiped out.

But we were also faced with grumpy kids, more adjustments to be made, and a house that would be full of those heretofore unexpected carpet fumes. So we chucked the whole thing and went for a family vacation. We loaded up the van, agreed that no word of the house, home school, or any other pressing thing would be mentioned, and motored down to to San Diego.

We spent the night in a hotel (a bit strange with all the kids—Born Dancin' found the wall-length mirror at the Ramada the most entertaining thing she'd found in days and spent the evening posing, spinning, and giggling), and yesterday was spent at the San Diego Zoo, where I do believe we saw every animal ever created and rode the Skyride a handful of times. It was a fine day and helped out psyches a lot.

Today was back to the office for me for an all-out cram session to try to get everything ready for the semester starting on Monday. I'm nothing like prepared, but I still don't begrudge spending yesterday on more recuperative activities. And now it seems I've missed our staff in-service and other activities today, which I don't even remember hearing about. Not an auspicious start, but I'm hoping to get into the swing of things over the weekend in a somewhat normal home and start afresh next week.

Now it's off home to get ready for the grandparents to visit and prepare to show Grandma how to play the Wii...

Not My Fault!

Just popping in here for a minute to defend myself against all these wild accusations about my failures.

Actually, there have been zero such accusations, but I feel them anyway.

I have only a few minutes here before the carpet guys come back. (At least, they'd better show up in the next few minutes...) Yesterday we were trying to clear out the kids' rooms, so there was a mountain of furniture in front of the computer here in our room. Then they left and we moved all the accoutrema back into the kids' rooms—but because of concerns over "new carpet fumes" (I thought Joanna was a paranoid conspiracy nut—turns out there are such things. Who knew?) (Well, Joanna, I guess.), all the kids camped out in our room for the night, so I couldn't get on the computer last night, either, lest I wake them and earn the Wrath of Wife ™. (It turned out that it was Born Dancin' who did all the awake-keeping last night—nutty little widget.)

For those interested in such things, our current carpets are (1) dark brown shag from the mid-70's at the earliest, or (2) a dank berber in the bedrooms. It's being replaced with a light, creamy beige carpet sprinkled with tastefully multicolored specks in order to hide the buckets of dirt we end up dragging in every day. It should also be dandy at hiding Legos and the chewed-up bits of whatever inedible substance Born Dancin' is currently gnawing on. Compared to our old, thin-padded carpets on the concrete slab, though, it feels like walking on non-sticky, non-sweet marshmallows. (Not a very good simile, I guess. The new semester hasn't started yet and I'm not required to have my literary device engines running at full capacity yet.)

Soon the carpeters shall show up, I have faith, and then we'll be moving all of the baggage from here in our room elsewhere (and don't ask me where that might be). So I'll probably be offline all day, and our connection is quirky enough that I'm never certain I'll get it back in working order if we dare to touch it. I have to get into work tomorrow, though, so I'll be back with you somehow. Lucky things, you.

Winter Wonderland?

My intention was to blog today about books and such (as all those amused and/or annoyed by my invitation to GoodReads might have guessed), but my arms are too tired to type long. The storm finally did show up, and after pouring down rain on us for a day and a half, yesterday it started snowing.

And it didn't stop.

I shoveled the car and driveway out twice yesterday, and this morning got to do it all over again with another six inches. Overall it looks like we got at least a couple of feet. As always when it snows, this means I get a lot of very specific exercise which is repeated far too infrequently to be of any real use. If I shoveled snow every week (not really something I'd look forward to), perhaps I'd have manly arms. As is, I struggle and groan through the winter, and just as I'm getting to the point at which my arms are able to handle extended digging, winter is over and I have three more seasons for them to go flabby again.

It's the same phenomenon that affects my hiking: when I do go, I wear myself down to nothing and wreck my legs by pushing myself as far as I can (which is a disappointingly short distance) until I feel like I'm going to die and become a cautionary tale for future trekkers, but I don't get any benefit from it because I do it too rarely to be of much use as training. Sad, really.

I must admit, however, that while I am trying to work regular walking into my schedule, I'm not really amenable to going out and shoveling dirt during the off-season to stay in shape for winter...

Waiting for the Storm

The weather gurus keep claiming that a gigantor storm is set to crash down upon us, and even Slater over on his blog claims that he is being battered by winds and rain. For three days I've been all prepared, covering all our outdoor furniture, laying in a stock of firewood, putting the new bikes under the new canopy, digging trenches and laying in sandbags—everything.

Currently it's sunny and very pleasant. There are some clouds over the Rim, but they seem very innocuous. I tell you, if we don't get some further weather, I may have to pull up stakes and go to someplace where they do have some.

Oh, wait—I want to do that anyway.

Speaking of bikes, those new conveyances aforementioned are the boys new Transformer bikes which came courtesy of the grandparents this Christmas. Sadly, they do not actually transform into small robots, or even powered exoskeletons which envelop the boys on command. I'm kind of disappointed about that, but otherwise they are great little bikes, save that the plastic "Transformer" parts come off at the drop of a hat (or when you crash, as Poncho discovered a few times). These are the first "big kid" bikes the boys have had, and even with training wheels the cycles give them a sense of power. My mom and I took them down to a park this week where it was (A) warmer and (B) flatter for them to test out. After some initial hiccups, they were doing great—so well, in fact, that they took me on an "adventure ride" around the entire perimeter of the park. Three times. Good exercise for all.

I know that teaching your kids to ride is kind of an iconic parent moment, and it proved so here, too, even though there wasn't much we had to show them; the training wheels kept them from needing to balance on any but the sharpest curves, and other than having to occasionally push a boy up a hill, they didn't really need us. Still, seeing them in their helmets and pads (Harley Davidson branded! Sweet!), riding high, brought home just how big they are getting. People who haven't seen them for some time (like the recently returned Parkers) comment on how they've grown, but since we see them every day, the change is incremental.

I know there's nothing new in these musings, but I suppose everyone must go through life's experiences for themselves before they become reality. I used to hate when parents said things like, "You can't understand until you have kids of your own," but there is some truth to it. Some events have to be lived to fully appreciate. And suddenly the idea that the boys will only be in the house for another decade or so (I've vowed to put them on the curb on their eighteenth birthday—just ask them), rather than seeming like lifetime, seems all too short a time.

Still, I'll be happy to stop stepping on Legos every blessed day...

Opening with Excuses

As the astute among you have noted, I did not post yesterday. So much for that resolution. I quit.

Hah! I kid, of course. Truly, in this one instance, it really wasn't my fault. Currently our house is a mass of turmoil made up of post-holiday recovery efforts and smoke damage-related home improvements. New carpet is coming next week, which will be great but is a daunting prospect. And before the old carpet leaves, the walls needed repainting (both for aesthetics and further smoke-scent mitigation). So furniture is everywhere, the kids play amongst a maze of painting supplies, and all is chaos. Yesterday, as Joanna got started on our room (she's doing the lioness's share of the painting by far), we had to move out all the computer equipment. Since we're still limping along with a "slow DSL" line, that left me without internet access. I've convinced her that with my increasing online class load and doing most of my work from my laptop, it's time to upgrade to wireless, but as of yet we're still on the land line.

So there's my excuse. Wasn't that fascinating?

Other than the utter madness, life continues apace. My new semester starts up in a week or so, with a new online course I've not taught before and an overload class thrown in the bargain. On Tuesday I finally put together my course text for the new class—one day soon I'll actually have to get in and read what I have created. Always exciting, that. The kids will be back to homeschooling next week (between bouts of laying carpet, presumably). I'm actually kind of looking forward to getting back to work so I can, you know, relax a bit.

I've only eked out a couple of hours here this morning, so I'm going to get over to the writing. May you find profounder thoughts elsewhere today than you've encountered here.

New Year, New Blog

Well, it's the same blog, but now it looks different.

Well, it actually looks like it used to in the beginning. It's kind of a repeat. But it's a change, which is what I'm looking for this new year.

I think I've mentioned before that I am slavishly devoted to temporal markers in my life. Being able to pinpoint particular times for the beginnings of things, durations that they last, and the like are something of an obsession. (This might explain why, once upon a time, I actually kind of liked science.) My difficulty is that I let those temporal parameters define my action. If I have work, I'd much rather start it on the hour than twenty-two minutes before. I time how long it takes to grade individual student papers. And I've always been a sucker for New Year's resolutions because it seems so profound to be able to look back and say, "There. January 1, 2008. That was the beginning of my new life."

That also means that if I trip up on one of those resolutions, I tend to toss the whole thing out. If it can't be perfectly pinpointed to the start of the new year, what's the point? This is both ludicrous and absurd, I know.

All that said, I do have some goals for this coming year. The good news is, almost all of them involve an activity/action/mindset I already accomplished for some duration in 2007, so they aren't new resolves so much as renewed devotion to existing ones. In only slightly particular order, they are as follows:

1. Don't Despair If I Flake Out on One of the Other Resolutions: Very important.


2. Write Every Day: For about four months there, I managed this, and the novel rolled forward apace. Then the end of the semester, holidays, evacuations, and other madness all ganged up on me. (Upon me up ganged? Hmm... have to think about that one.) Yet I'm pleased to find Leaf and her pals are still living in my head, and the break may even have reignited some of my interest in their lives, so I'm looking forward to getting back to them.


3. Finish the Novel: If #2 goes as it ought, I should be done with the first complete draft of the monster sometime in the first half of the year. Sir Slater continues to bug me (in the best possible way) to get that thing written. (At least, he did before suddenly having a house for his family to live in became more important than my needs—sheesh.)


4. Pray and Read the Good Book Every Day: This is another activity at which I was increasingly successful last year. I actually read the entire Old Testament from beginning to end for the first time, and I'm moving through the New now. (I'm closing in on the end of Acts—Paul has just been arrested and is about to give his big speech.) This has made a huge difference in my life, my work, my attitude, and my just about everything else. As with other things, the holidays throw off my routine and this has suffered somewhat. So I have to get back on that horse.


5. Lose Some Weight: I know, I know—this is the quintessential New Year's resolution that 89% of all humans make and approximately 2% actually achieve for more than six days. But last year I did lose quite a bit of weight, and I'm going back on that diet beginning today. (It, too, took a break during the holidays. But I'm okay with that.) Joanna has actually slimmed down amazingly in the last nine months, and following her lead I lost nearly 40 pounds. I've gained about half of it back, but it really is a "lifestyle change" kind of thing, so I'm looking forward to my more svelte self, and then getting even svelter than that.


6. No More Fast Food: To that end, I'm swearing off Carl's and Jack-in-the-Box and all the other friendly purveyors of salty, unctuous temptation-curses. Surely, I'll go with my family when we occasionally go, but I've been in the bad habit of stopping in before or after work, and both dietarily and monetarily that needs to stop. Oh—this in no way applies to coffee, just for the record. Must keep the furnace fueled with something...


7. Keep Up with Grading: This is a heavy load to shoulder. I have an extra class this semester, as well as three online courses (one of which is a nine-week intensive course). I did relatively well at the opening of last semester, but much of it fell apart by the end. If I'm to survive, this one is essential. To that end, I also need to be more organized in my planning. Technically, that's what I'll be doing once this post is done.


8. Blog Every Day: Well, every weekday, at any rate. Yes, I know you've been clamoring for it, so here it is. I do intend to put up something every day here, minor as it might be. I realize that I look forward to the posts of my friends, and the occasional passer-by has mentioned wanting new posts (thanks for the impetus, Ornery's Wife...), so that seems like a useful thing.

There may be others, but this seems like plenty for the moment, and eight is a good number. I pray that all of you find God's blessings and glory in this new year, which looks to be a year of transitions and changes, of completions and new beginnings.

What's Exciting about 2008?

This:



I have more to post and more going on, but I just couldn't wait to drop that in there. I hate getting excited about movies, because they almost always disappoint, but I did love the stories, odd though they are...

Day 25 (Word Count: 19, 979)

I've come to the point of admitting that I'm not going to make it to the 50,000 words demanded by NaNoWriMo. And I'm okay with that.

At this point in my writing career, I think it's more important to finish this novel sitting in front of me than to clack out an arbitrary number of words during November. The book is up to a little over 105,000 words, or about 138 pages of single-space 12 pt. type (leave my anal-retentiveness to its own little happiness, okay?), and a hair over 95,000 of those words are in a single narrative draft of some quality. It will need another go-through, but it's approaching done-ness, and that is a good thing. A couple of folks have that latest chunk in hand and seem not to have seared their own eyes out of their heads with burning pokers, and I take that as a good sign.

I do need to be more regular about the writing, though with the semester drawing to a close it's getting harder to carve out space in the schedule. (This is why I want to be a "writer" when I grow up—the ability to sit down and do this thing without having to figure out which of my other responsibilities I'm going to abandon to do it.) I can churn out a thousand words an hour of relatively acceptable prose, at least in 2-hour blocks; I can do yet more with longer stretches if given sufficient motivation. My issue is that I forget that motivation, for the world so easily steals it away, distracting me with a thousand entertainments I could better do without. A good combination of free time to write and friendly pressure to actually do so would be ideal.

My thanks to all my readers for putting up with me feeling my way along in this process. I sometimes feel like a gimp who'd rather blather on about writing than actually, you know, write, and part of me wants to be a distant, reclusive genius who simply disappears for months at a time and then reappears with brilliant literature in hand; I guess most reclusive geniuses don't start that way...

In other news, Thanksgiving was very nice, though it was celebrated with all children in various stages of illness. They're recovering for the most part, which is good, what with the looming holiday scheduling madness that always descends.

I should get back to that grading I alluded to earlier. I hope all had a blessed holiday, and will continue to do so in the days to come.

ps—For those interested in such things, an invitation will be going out soon for next year's murder party—an original composition. Danger! Intrigue! Pantaloons! Watch your inboxes...

Day 17 (Word Count: 14, 847)

I just wanted to pop in here to put up a new post, since I have been a bad non-poster person as of late. And yes, I have been tentatively doing the National Novel Writing Month, and yes, I am way behind on my word count. The reasons:

(A) Still Recovering from the Evacuation (actually, this is an excuse, not a reason—as I always point out to my students, there's a difference)

(2) That Whole "Tentatively" Thing (I don't think it's possible to only kind of do NaNoWriMo)

(iii) I'm Still Working on THE NOVEL (not only am I not starting a new work this time around, but I'm still working on a "fair" draft of the Leaf story. This is absolutely the wrong way to rack up a high word count)

(@*$&) Laziness, Fear, Self-Loathing, Doubt, and Madness (as always, but not as bad as they have been. They generally only show up on occasion now)

So there you go. I'll try to post again soonish, when I'm not running late. As I am now.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig (Again)

I've used that title before, but it's what I always think of when I return home after a long absence. I blame Bladerunner for initiating it and the Parker boy for imprinting it indelibly in my brain.

We are indeed home again—Running Springs residents were allowed back up on Thursday. It was a strange trip. For the most part, there was little noticeable damage on the way up, and then large swaths of devastation from our street upward. We didn't lose any homes in our stretch, but the fire ran right up behind our access road. It came within about 50-60 yards of our house and perhaps a dozen from our storage shed; some of our neighbors' decks were singed. We were incredibly blessed and the firefighters did an amazing job. Despite the many losses, the number of homes saved—and obviously saved by a hair's breadth, and at great risk—was incredible.

Our house smelled like the inside of a furnace, and even after washing everything we own, the odor of smoke still lingers. It's been strange getting back to "normal" life, and the ideas I've been mulling over about transcending the mundane are sticking with me. Lately my prayer has been for God to lead me in an extraordinary life, to remind me daily of His larger view. Yes, the everyday tasks still have to be done (and even done with more dedication and energy than I normally devote to them), but they don't define my existence. I prayed some months ago (during the uncertainty over the Idyllwild land deal) that I only wanted God's biggest plan for me, the largest dreams He laid upon my heart, and that I should not settle for less. I think He's been faithful to remind me of that and is training me in that direction.

I did not expect to write about this, actually, but it seems to have forced itself onto my blog nonetheless. I guess I've been taken lately with this idea of the extraordinary life (pardon the repetition—it's the phrase I've had in my mind since this began and I can't seem to shake it) and the ways we allow ourselves to be distracted by the surface issues of the world. I know I certainly get all caught up in them until I can barely see anything else and God's words somehow seem distant and hollow. I think Kathie and Chris, living out on the pointy end in situations that force them beyond themselves, have been pushed out into that clarity of vision, and Slater's right: it's probably where we need to be.

Okay, enough of that blather. I'm off to go wash some dishes—extraordinarily!

Change of Venue

A very short entry at the moment, because I have to head out from work, but I wanted to put in an update:

On Sunday, we moved from Joanna's parents' place up to a camp owned by the parents of friends of friends (everybody has been so generous with their help for us poor refugees from the flames). It's been a bit like being on vacation, what with the bunk beds and rustificated conditions, but it's beautiful and has a lot of room for the kids to run around (plus, the boys are with some of their best friends, so they're having a ball).

Tomorrow, Lord willing, we will be allowed back on the mountain and into our home. So ideally by the weekend, we'll be approaching normal (as normal as we ever get, at any rate). I'll try to check in then.

Thank you deeply for all your prayers and offers of help. It's going to be quite a different mountain to which we return—the word is that there is no more forest behind our homes any longer, and houses both above and below us were lost.

But that must wait. Now I have to get back to the cabin, or there may be no candy for the Halloween party, and that would be Bad and Awful. Good All Hallow's Eve, all.

Lessons the Evacuation Has Taught Me

First and foremost, being out of the house and crowded into a small space with many others has shown all of my faults in glorious detail. My inclination to shirk my duties; my short temper and lack of patience; my need to be in control and my need for constant attention; and so on, and so forth. I don't feel like I'm doing a stellar job at being the "man of the house" out of my house. (Not that I do all that well in my own house, either, but at least there I have a little more room and a smaller audience.) I don't think I'm awful (though you'd have to ask my wife and rest of the family for the goods on that front), but I'm certainly not towing the line like I ought to be.

On the other hand, at least I'm not yelling about how the Government is trying to enact marshal law in the mountain communities and demanding that I be let back into my home even if I'm going to hamper emergency services and bring great risk upon myself and others by doing so. I know people's emotions get wrung out during such times (trust me, I know—see above), and we're all desperate to get a look at our property. But patience, people. Patience.

Not much else to report at this stage—I just wanted to pop in and update those of you perusing the blog. We're still sitting tight in Cherry Valley; this next week. I'll have to make some attempt to actually do my job once again, no matter what. I'm going to head back to the temporary homestead now and see if I can't better myself at least a bit before lunch.

The Waiting

The good news first: as of last night at around 6pm, all the homes on our stretch of Live Oak were still standing, and it sounds as though the homes of most of those we know were as well. We even saw pictures, courtesy of a fine law enforcement official who is a friend of my sister-in-law.

Many kind people have stepped forward to offer help, use of their homes, and other aid, and you are all much appreciated. Sorry if I haven't gotten back to some of you directly—it's still been a crazy time. But it is good to know so many were praying for and thinking of us.

We're not quite through the flames yet. There is still 0% containment on the Slide Fire and some flare-ups continue to erupt. Plus, now we're seeing more and more calls for security checks on potential looters (What a sad, sad world.), including one right across the street from us. And once the fire is officially out, the word is that it will require a mighty large effort to clean up the roads and infrastructure enough to allow people to return. The lesson about "letting go of mundane things" has not (so far) been quite as permanent as I might have imagined, but it is ongoing. And, of course, there are those who will not recover for years to come, or potentially ever. I pray we can do something for them and that, as is the hope with disastrous circumstances of whatever stripe, we will be drawn a little closer to others through the adversity.

Getting a little philosophical here. Blame it on a lack of sleep, on being in a small house with 10 kids and 8 adults (no matter how kind and generous and patient they are), on a lack of internet access except for certain portions of the day (O, how I have become a worshipper at the altar of technology and instant gratification/communication!), and perhaps on my inability to think coherently these days.

Me mother's coming to join me for coffee, so I'm off. Prayers for coherence, sanity, and faithfulness are appreciated (possibly more for those who have to deal with me than for myself).

Flames of Truth

The title may sound pretty dramatic, especially when they are covering for a day spent doing nothing more than checking online every five minutes and watching television news.

We don't have any information on our house, though the devastation in Running Springs looks fairly horrific. We know that most of the streets around us have burned, and the reports at the moment suggest that the fire is making a run up our road toward us. Our firefighter neighbor suggested when he moved in that the potential nightmare for them was fire getting into the drainage below us, as the fuels there hadn't burned for a century or more. And that sounds like just where it is.

Really, I'm okay no matter what happens, despite the rather desperate demeanor I'm wearing these days. It's God's house, and He can leave it or take it, as He likes. I admitted to Devin and Chris that there's a part of me that would welcome the chance to start over afresh, really.

But I just want to know. If it's there, fine. If it's gone, fine. But not knowing is nerve-wracking. In essence, it makes no difference if I know and I ought to be able to act in that knowledge, but sink me if I can get a lick of work done. Our campus is closed tomorrow (thanks be to the Lord for that), but knowledge would be the balm of the moment.

I keep wondering if there isn't something that civilians could do to help. I have no skills to speak of, but I could dig a ditch, or cut down trees, or be a water boy for working firefighters. And someone ought to start a website called "IsMyHouseBurned.com"; you would put in your address and it would just say, "Yes, you now own a pile of rubble," or, "No, fluffykins—You still have a place to live." Someone get on that, would you?

More prayers for those who can't afford to lose their houses, and for those amazing men and women fighting the fire, are the things.

Speaking Too Soon

I should have left well enough alone.

After my post from yesterday, of course we got evacuated today. A couple of big fires in Lake Arrowhead and Green Valley Lake have pushed us out. The family and many of our worldly possessions are in Beaumont with Joanna's generous folks, along with our neighbors and possibly Joanna's sisters' family: it'll be a busy place (10 kids all together...).

I had just prayed last night (after my last entry) that God would help me to let go of the mundane things of this world and cling on only to Him and His greater promises—I did not expect the answer to come quite so swiftly, or in such a dramatic fashion...

Anyway, we don't have internet access from the new digs, so communication may be sporadic. Which is frustrating, because thanks to Rim of the World.net, I'm now an update junkie, and the local news still can't get any of the mountain towns straight.

In any case, we are well and we will be fine—pray for those who will suffer far more from the loss of their homes, and for all the firefighters out there. I'll update when I can.