"Two Cats and a Cigarette"

**found in the waiting room of the health office, in a small red book with a bridge-like drawing on the front and "Small Press Collective" 1993 (I think this is the correct information) in the corner.**

In the large, dark living room of our New York apartment, my Dad can sometimes be found sitting in the shadows, playing the piano. One night, not too long ago, I sat just behind him, perched on the stairs in the near dark and I do not know if he knew I was there. Oh, but the sad, sweet waltz, the beautiful floating notes, the way his fingers stroked the keys, his eyes closed, and his grey head dipping slightly to the music, and so beautiful my Dad, so sweet, and I cried silently, and listened to the music, and felt the tears roll down my face. And my Dad did not know that two feet behind him, his son was crying.

There's a point when you realize how sad and beautiful that love really is. The tired, peaceful features of my Dad. He has no idea how much I love him. And how can I tell him? how can I show him? how could I ever make him know, make anyone know, how much I love? So much. I love so much and yet it is caught up in me, this love: caged as if it were a beast and perhaps it is, but beasts were meant to run wild, to burst out from the shadows at passersby of the jungle of life. And this love has been locked up for so long, nowhere to put it, nowhere to let it go, so afraid to love, to let myself just love, to let it all go and cry and cry and let my Dad see those tears, let him know those tears are tears of love for him, for his beauty, for his own sad beast of love that seeps out in a tired smile or the way his fingers float over the keys. We are all just locked away love, love locked in love and fear of love and love love love...

Sad, sweet love
So hard to hug
one's self.
***
excerpt from
-Two Cats and a Cigarette
by Taylor Plimpton


Thankyou Taylor, for writing in clear images what myself and at least one of my friends have been longing for words to describe.

Math, Physics, and Trees

The mathematician plays a game in which he himself invents the rules while the physicist plays a game in which the rules are provided by Nature, but as time goes on it becomes increasingly evident that the rules which the mathematician finds interesting are the same as those which Nature has chosen.
-P.A.M. Dirac

6.022x10^23

Happy Mole Day!
but this isn't just any Oct 23rd.
It's 2006! 10.23.06

06 * 10^23

In honor of this close approximation of a mole,
I bring you photo documentation of how the MDW (Mole Detectives of Wisconsin) nearly unearthed a mole.

ComeHoming

I am home for a few days.

Once again, I am met with the sound of screaming childrens' laughter...
and at least one third of it is mine.

:)

Delayed Response

Update: 11.08.06
12:40

For those of you finding your way here from the Quest article link, my original article is below.
If you want more information, I just posted a good collection of links in More Stories about Cairo.

But, here are the relevant links:

My online journal posts to the InterVarsity site

Global Urban Trek: Cairo, a new blog to hopefully collect the thoughts of everyone who went to volunteer in Cairo with InterVarsity this summer, displaying some of my updates which never made it to InterVarsity.

Derivations, my current blog

.

Thanks.


*****


An article I just wrote for the school paper

*****

Greetings, fellow students.

I realize it is somewhat late in the year, but I thought I’d share with you a sort of “What I did this Summer” article. It’s writing has been delayed by a combination of the inevitable schoolwork and a blatant not-knowing-what-to-say. The subject feels rather removed from our present situation, which is largely my own fault. For, it seems that if I really allowed my summer to influence me as much as I think it should, this would hardly be a ‘What I did this Summer’ article, and more of a ‘What I am Still Doing’ article. Unfortunately, I have allowed myself to slip through nearly 10 weeks without writing this article. So in a spirit of ashamedly delayed loyalty to my friends and teachers in Cairo, an obligation to share information with my fellow humans, and despite the communicative and length restrictions of a Quest article, I come bearing stories.

Fifteen other college students and I went to Cairo this summer on a short-term missions trip with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, an international Christian organization. Proselytizing is illegal in Cairo, and though we did meet some lawbreakers, our purpose in going was not to convert the Egyptian masses, but rather to serve in schools for Sudanese refugee children. We prepared for our trip in part by reading Quest for Hope in the Slum Community (articles compiled) by Scott Bessenecker, Slave: my true story by Mende Nazer, and Dispossessed: Life in our World's Urban Slums by Mark Kramer. Many Sudanese have fled to Cairo, hoping to gain passage to other countries. Many have been denied refugee status and are encountering discrimination in Cairo.

There are no UN programs set up for the refugees to gain access to schooling or jobs. The UNHCR paperwork is nearly impossible to fill out and may never result in getting the refugees anywhere else. Many refugees are waiting for the promised phone call to inform them of their flight out. It was promised within weeks. It could come at any time. But, they have waited for years with no results. Many of the parents are not comfortable sending their children to Egyptian schools, for fear of either financial, religious, or racial problems. As a result, concerned refugee parents have gotten together in various locations and, often with help from churches or outside organizations, found the means to hire teachers and a classroom. I learned later that there are only 12 such refugee schools in Cairo. We served at 6 of them. There is no way that we met half of the refugee children in Cairo. I’m not sure exactly how I feel about paying college tuition for one of the best educations in the country when there are kids in the slum who can’t learn to read because their parents can’t afford the LE10 tuition (LE10 = 10 Egyptian pounds ~ $2 US).


We lived for 5 weeks in a flat in Heliopolis – a relatively well-off section of Cairo. We split into groups to volunteer at 6 different schools. Every weekday morning (except for Fridays), two other volunteers and myself wedged our way onto bus for the 30-40 minute drive out to the slum community in ArbaA-wa-Noos (Literally, "4 1/2"). Walking through the dust between constant construction and half-finished buildings (completed buildings are subject to a city tax) past donkey-drawn carts every morning, we reached the square compound that was our school – Central (emphasis on the -ral). The compound formed a square with a gravelly-cement open space in between, spanned by a volleyball net. The rooms formed the perimeter of the square, with doors towards the volleyball ‘court’. The teachers we worked with were all Sudanese refugee men, and we quickly developed good friendships with them. The students ranged from ages of possibly 5 – I5, and they’re pretty awesome kids. I usually helped Leonardo teach either music or English. Marko, Emmanuel, Bouquet, and James were others of our good teacher friends at the school. Although the atmosphere at the school is mostly laid back, these men do not lead easy lives. They work multiple jobs to support themselves or their families while attending school and completing with UNHCR paperwork.

We often wondered if we were actually helping in any way, since the teachers we worked with were more qualified to teach their students than we were. Emmanuel, one of the teachers from Central came to visit us early in the month at our flat to tell us how much he appreciated just the fact that we were there and cared about the Sudanese people. He told us that nobody had to care about the Sudanese people, yet we chose to come from America to try to help. He said it was things like this that gave him hope for his people and his country.


And, they do have hope. Many of the children at our schools were planning their hopeful future education around developing skills to bring back to South Sudan. Sometimes, I felt like I was watching an entire people group in the early stages of resurrecting their homeland and their way of life. I thought they would just want to get out and start their lives over, but most of the refugees we talked to sincerely hope to return to South Sudan and rebuild. Their conflict is the one between North and South Sudan.

The oversimplified problem is basically that the Arab government in the North wants all of Sudan to be Arab. However, something like 70% of Sudan’s people are black-skinned and not Arab. Thus, their villages are burned, their women are raped, their children are sold into slavery, and those that remain are taught to speak only Arabic. We actually met a man from Darfur who was pursued and tortured by the government for his crime of working to develop a curriculum to teach the children of the Fur tribe their native language.

Everyone’s been tortured. It gets a little unreal sometimes. Of everyone that told us the story of how they escaped to Cairo from Sudan, they’d all been tortured - their wives, too. Some of them still have family left, but it’s very hard to keep in touch. Near the end of our trip, Emmanuel was telling us about his family, his life in Cairo, and his desire to return to Sudan. He asked us, "When you return to America, what will you do for us?"

As Emmanuel told us earlier, ‘we must all lift each other up by sharing the things we know.’

That is what I’m trying to do, and admittedly it feels somewhat futile. Before we left, Emmanuel asked us not to forget him. I hope I don’t, but the world I live in here is so different, it’s sometimes hard to remember exactly what was important during the summer. However, earlier this year, I attended a Darfur awareness/fundraising event put on by the Save Darfur Coalition. Ethan Rafel was there. He’d gone back to Africa and was in Darfur at the same time as I was in Cairo. He brought back stories about the kinds of threats that my friends in Cairo were fleeing from. I still don’t know what to do, but the event becomes more encouraging to me with the passage of time.

So what can be done? I don’t know exactly. But, there are many good charities already set up in Cairo (and, I’m sure, in other cities filling with refugees). There are also many refugees with their blue cards (refugee status, awaiting relocation to a different country) who don’t have anywhere to go or anyone to receive them once they get there. I hear that individuals and churches can sign up to receive refugees, but I have yet to find out how this happens or where one can sign up. I have included a link to Tukul Crafts in this article. Tukul (too cool!) is run by and employs refugees, so anything you buy there will directly help refugees and refugee business. I might even know the guy who screens your shirt. There are many refugees relocated to America who are unfamiliar with the language and the customs. If you meet one, please be kind and helpful.

And, take Emmanuel’s advice – ‘we must all lift each other up by sharing the things we know.’ Spread the word.

Thanks for helping me pass along this information on behalf of others who are not here to tell you themselves. I hope that this article is a reminder to me as much as to you about the world outside the bubble, and even outside of America.
If you have questions or comments, I would be happy to hear them.
mehoket@reed.edu
And, if there’s something I don’t know about, I still can talk with my friends and teachers on Gmail chat from time to time.

I hope you’ll investigate the following links:

Global Urban Trek: Cairo, a recently-started blog-in-progress for the combined experiences and thoughts of the other student volunteers as well as the friends we made in Cairo.

Tukul Crafts, self-reliance for refugees in Cairo (I want the bookstore to carry some of these items).

A Long Walk Home – short documentary done by last years’ trek

The Lost Boys
and the film

an Article about Mokattam, the Garbage Village

I did not talk about Mokattam in this article at all, but it is one of the most efficient garbage recycling systems in the world, returning about 80% of trash into some use. This is great, except that the method is for entire impoverished villages (mostly Coptic, and the most obviously Christian section of Cairo) to sort through the garbage produced by all of Cairo. One city’s trash is another city’s unfortunate livelihood.

while awaiting the Apocalypse

Transcribed from my notebook:
******

10/12/06

Tonight

~8:30

We spoke of the apocalyptic genre in Religion today.

I’m ready for the world to end tonight.
I’m rolling to a stop, fortunately, Fall Break is the day after tomorrow.
I feel weary, but rested.
I am the right temperature
I have been conscious all day, waking before my alarm
I have done what I wanted, when I wanted to do it
and I haven’t wanted much
Fortunately, the things I want are good,
Thus I found Real Analysis Homework in Foster I to be incredibly peaceful.
Everything is peaceful.
I do not want things that I don’t have.
My memories are on the fonder side.
DD’s dream sequence has been playing through my head
And is a wholly appropriate soundtrack.
I’ve been with friends, but not for too long
I’ve been alone and calm
I came home to delicious vegetable rice soup
With ‘cornbread’ and German Chocolate cake
Which I ate (not too much) by myself in a kitchen not too light, not too dark, empty, but comfortable while beautiful folk-sounding music played. I can only remember a chorus with the word ‘Dover.’ I wish I could tell someone how beautiful. Quietly, calmly beautiful.
Beautiful like the Shiva candle which I am babysitting on my desk. The wax is folding into a pillow on top with age and warmth.

If the world ended right now,
I would stay right here.
I feel comfortable like worn cloth

The candle has surpassed its 24 hours
And is ready for the breath that lets it rest.
It is waiting contentedly and patiently,
Perhaps not knowing when its time will come,
But ready to fold itself in its own warm wax pillow.
It awaits rest calmly and peacefully.
Its end shall come tonight
But mine continues.
While I write, a speaker in the Chapel, whose lecture I wished to attend, is speaking on humanitarian concerns, including Darfur.

Elsewhere, there is darkness in desperate need of candles even if for a little light to huddle near fearfully. Elsewhere, there are those with no friends and a loneliness that gnaws us to despair. Elsewhere, children wish to go to school, wish to play music, wish to eat even a handful of cold rice.

And so my evening, for which I am grateful,
My evening of everything detailed perfectly like a painting, my beautiful evening for which I wish, I wish there was someone nearby who is not busy, who is not sad, who is not exhausted or alone, who would understand how beautifully still, still like the hum of stars in a deep blue winter sky,
How deeply still this evening has made me feel.
Thankyou, God.
Tonight is a thick oil painting of blues and purples, reds, yellows, orange
Daubed heavily
With weight
But this is not everyone’s painting.

Where will I go to find someone not exhausted? Not lonely, not despairing, not hungry who will sink with me tonight into the black velvet of a winter sky?

My evening is not over.
The world cannot end tonight
Because if I will for one moment look beyond this frame,
I see fear, I see despair, hatred, destitution,
My own brothers and sisters,
My own flesh & blood going without
Without friends, without family, without food or hope or health or love

And my world cannot end.
I am grateful for this painting, but I cannot stay here until it can be for everyone.
I will leave this frame and return to them, and together, we will work for a new world. This is not easy work. It will consume us.

The Shiva candle is lit for Yom Kippur in memorial of the dead. I shall extinguish it now, may this evening go with it.

Tonight’s the night the world begins again.

Freewriting: Letter to Myself

transcribed from dense scribbles on the back of 2 sheets of paper - slightly after 5:00pm, Sunday Oct 8th.
the numbers are columns of folded paper

****
1

I'm waiting for Abe in the Pool Hall. The Jukebox is playing Otherside by the Red Hot Chili Peppers at a volume that makes me consider the chest of a massive purring cat. A massive purring cat with base lines and a sense of rhythm.

I feel like writing, which is great. Maybe the music helps. You won't be able to feel it when you read it, but the base line is really moving my hand along like it was the soundtrack to some anxious roadtrip at night. With streetlights flashing overhead as you pass beneath them.

The song has changed
It's not a road trip, but I still feel like I'm playing some role as a writer, tasting images out of the air like an Epicurean while everyone else contents themselves with visual observations.

Perhaps this is what it is to freewrite. I haven't done this in so long. So long, and it's oddly freeing, like skiing again for the first time. If you let it go, the ride is smooth, fast, and exciting, but you don't actually know what's coming up and secretly wonder if you can handle it.

I'm writing on the back of an article that my Grandma sent me. I haven't even read it yet. I'm starting to write this small and dense like her, packing in words, writing like my life depended on whatever I manage to preserve in this tiny scrap so that maybe my lost child will find them one by one and collect them in a plastic bag. I hope it will seep love. I hope

2

I write like the heartbeat of a hiding rabbit. At any moment, I could be interrupted & the thin blue lifeline of this story will be cut.

My Grandma many years ago told me I had very nice writing for my age (she meant the shapes of my letters). Cursive I guess, is what they were trying to teach us. For extra credit, we could write a story (2nd grade) about a picture of a little pilgrim boy and girl holding a pumpkin and a turkey or something. I wrote several pages. I would've done it anyway. I don't know if I even got extra credit, because I don't think I finished the story. It was a very detailed story of their Thanksgiving day. I finish very few stories. Maybe that's the nature of a story. And every final page anticipates a sequel. But yes. Like many of my stories, this one did not end. I was used to long stories. I rarely started out with an ending in sight. I just started writing or, more commonly, drawing. My Dad used to bring home printing paper from his job & I would just draw. forever. Every detailed change [in the story] went on another page. I think I had, like, 12 pages of kittens walking into a room in order once. I wrote my first book (a close resemblence to the Frog & Toad stories) when I was 4,.. or maybe 3? I'll have to ask my grandmother. It's interesting to consider that I did not confine the storyline or captions to horizontal rows or to the bottom of the page. The story just swam around the pictures, as did the characters' speech bubbles. I must have been at least 4. I could read and write. There's no way my parents or grandmother would have made the text look that way if I hadn't written it. [Though, I think they did help]

3

I've come to a lull.

The other stories I wrote came within a few years. These ones were actually original. You can tell because thehy have titles like "The Dove Who got Safe from the Rain." and "The Cat Who got Ready for Christmas." Clearly, I wasn't copying with titles like that. And some rather aconventional storylines develop within the main plot. weird. I can almost remember how they made sense to me at the time. I wish I'd kept up with it. Darn school. They taught my to write but not to draw. Don't get me wrong. I worry myself sometimes, but I can still draw.

But, I want to draw comics. I'm pretty fluent in words and shapes, but not in their combination. It doesn't come naturally to me how to lay out images & text in a sort of .. visual art poetry. Or maybe that's because I'm trying to understand how other people do it. I shouldn't think like that. I should just start. I generally have high enough expectations that if I can make myself happy with something, other people seem to take it pretty well. I'm working back into that now. I was just thinking earlier that it's about time I take myself back up on some of my expectations. Running, thinking, developing my own skills as far I as I want them to go. Not waiting for others, not waiting for something else to happen first. I should feel better about trusting myself with myself and taking responsibility as my own caretaker.
I don't need permission.
I need will power.
It's been growing back.

4

I was doubtful for a while, but from a tiny grain of intent and an environment for which I'm grateful, I think I've been gaining enough energy, motivation, and determination to unclip and drive myself internally. I need to be more suspended.

I mean, unclip from horizontal webbing. My suspension shall be vertical. I will hang like the crystal-shaped faceted glass [or plastic, probably] bead [that I found and put up] on my wall from God. And I will not need the sun to shine on me to remind me of how it breaks and scatters within. I will not need my friends to pull me along or to bounce off of - to refuel me - I will become self sufficient again.

I entered school this way.
And now I've nearly built back to my former motivations, aspirations, goals, initiatives
[I may be so bold as to say that I have, but I've yet to take more action based on it]

And I don't want to go on in this vein, because I've begun to think that this could be a good blog entry & there might be some things around this narrative corner that I don't want to post. I was listening to a lecture given by Gordon Atkinson - Real Live Preacher - at Cornell. His introducer said that it had been said that writing - good writing - is like opening up a vein and letting the blood pour out onto the page (something like that). And, though I feel pretty compact at the moment, I'm still somewhat careful for my veins. I've had too much blood spilt on paper and the wrong vein might drain a bit too much at the moment. I'd rather spare you the sight of blood for the time being until I have enough to keep back for myself.

But that's another thing.
How much is enough for yourself?

5

I remember a short story about two brothers, one with a heart condition. They would race each other out to the open sea, swimming out as far as they could. The younger brother, the one with the heart condition, always won.

Years later, a conflict arose between them & in righteous indignant anger, they go at it again, the elder determined to beat the younger. But still, the younger brother goes out the farthest, even rescuing his older brother from an attack of cramps. How did he do it? the older asked. How did he always win? [the older brother] barely had enough energy to get back. The younger brother replies that he won because he never saved anything for the trip back.

Then there's the Nightingale of Oscar Wilde who poured her blood out for a rose, and into an ungrateful situation.

And there's God, who seems in everything I reed & most I feel, to ask my life poured out for many. As in the Jubilee year that never happened, the end of humanity is to give ourselves back to one another in restoration and there will be enough for all. But we have become discrete entities and refuse to exist in a continuous spreading of overlapping [Is it too math-nerdy that I want to make a comment about open subcovers? ].

Lord, how can I forgiveall the debts of my brother when my sister has not forgiven me? I cannot rescind his debt with money I don't have. Please, let me keep enough for myself.

But I feel that God says No,my grace is sufficient, and the greatest debt I owe has already been paid. I am without excuse except to pour out my life to others & to keep nothing in reserve for myself. The important

6

things remain, no matter how thinly spread. At least, that is my hope. Though I've been good at stalling, delaying, and finding excuses for the meantime, eventually, I feel I can do no other.

My life is not my own. It has been bought at a price, as has that of my brother. If God can buy each of us back for himself, who am I to deny payment? To hold back what doesn't belong to me?

It is meaningless - dust in the wind in the grand scheme of things. But as most things are when you're close to them, it seems like a bigger deal right now. I suppose that's another way that that the cure for passion is eternity. If you spread over a large enough interval, in preserving volume, the thickness comes within epsilon of zero [math reference]. But, I was also thinking that it is not a bad thing to be insignificant - to realize that despite so much teaching, my life counts for very little [it's actually a rather freeing thought]. And despite this, I have a God who chooses to preserve it for His purposes. And it's true, that he who has been forgiven much loves much. Where there is gratitude, there is love. I have observed this. And if it is the truth, then it is not wrong to be insignificant, & in many respects, worthless. But still, there is something vital. I think its like the grain that [one of my friends] is looking for. In some dimension, with respect to some axis, I exist - to the extent that we can speak of it. I am here & now, or depending on the time, was. And that is truth. And there's something about a life that is not negligible no matter how much its actions are. And perhaps that thought is the seed that the rest of my is crystalizing from. On my own, without permission, collecting up my own pieces to arrange them to my own expectations. Cindy just asked if this was a letter to Josh. I said no, it's for me. It's a letter for myself to find.
So left with no time or space,
...to be continued

 

Isaiah 58

Our Bible Study topic for this week

****
Isaiah 58

I really like this chapter.

We started by playing 'word-association' with "Religion/Religious" and considering what those words connoted to us.
like: exploiting, social, righteousness, 'holier than thou', old people, holidays...

we broke the chapter up into bits.

Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.

Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.

Wherefore have we fasted, [say they], and thou seest not? [wherefore] have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.


We started by discussion what sort of people God is addressing. The second verse actually looks pretty good, doesn't it? Isn't that what God's people should be doing? But in the third verse we see their questions, wondering why God seems so far off even as they are doing the right things. They have these 'if->then' expectations of what they should do and what God should do because of it. It seems that they're doing everything right, but the last sentence starts in at what God is getting at.

If you already know this verse or this situation, it's easy to say "Oh, well, they thought they were being righteous, but really they had it wrong." But what is that like? What is it like to think you are doing everything right, and being confused that God isn't responding? It sounds like they aren't very different from us. And, obviously it's hard to understand what you're doing wrong when you think you're doing everything right. kind of scary, actually.

The next chunk:

Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as [ye do this] day, to make your voice to be heard on high.

Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? [is it] to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes [under him]? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?

[Is] not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

[Is it] not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?


The things He's focusing on are a little different than what it seemed the people were doing. Isn't that confusing? What are the significant differences between the peoples' actions and what God wants the peoples' actions to be? We had a diagram with a 'God' bubble interacting with a 'People' bubble. Apparently, the two bubbles aren't communicating effectively and don't understand each other. This is not be best of relationship situations. The people are attempting to reach God with what they think are appropriate religious actions, and being confused. But God doesn't just want the religious actions. In our diagram, his bubble says 'Yo! Do things for your brothers.'
Consider: which of our actions are from our own sense of righteous appropriateness,
and which are genuinely motivated by love?
What is important here? Why does God even have to deliver this message?

What sort of diagram would we make if instead of 'God' interacting with 'The People' we considered 'God' interacting with 'us'?


the ending of Isaiah 58:

God comes back with His own if->then statement for the people.

I want to end this email with this passage, so first:
Consider
Is this real? Seriously. should I believe this?
if not, then what else should I believe?
if so, what does this picture of the world look like? is it worth working for?
what would it mean to work for this? Be concrete, now.

*****

Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward.

Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I [am]. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;

And [if] thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness [be] as the noonday:

And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

And [they that shall be] of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
¶
If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, [from] doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking [thine own] words:

Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken [it].

Dedication

I'm going to let the outside world know about this blog today.
Which means, I'll email a few people here and there.
And since I've already got an Introduction, I thought a Dedication would be appropriate.

But actually, this blog is still for me,
though that will probably change given the nature of some of the things I'm planning to write.

So how about some Acknowledgements where credit is due?

Thankyou
to xitdedragon for paying attention to my ideas, suggesting posting, and giving me blog advice,
to friends (and some strangers) for interesting, even inspiring blogs,
to friends and teachers in Africa for hospitality and for verbalizing the importance and responsibility of sharing knowledge,
to my writing teacher for inviting me into her class,
to my math teacher for teaching me a math that wasn't just numbers, and for encouraging me with, "You can do a lot of good by writing,"
to my chem and physics teacher for teaching the difference between a thing and it's symbol, and fostering quirky humor,
to my professors for their patience, encouragement, and furthering ways to view the world,
to my friends for awesomeness, sincerity, hilariousness, and all those things that make living especially fun,
to my family for all the times we laughed so much that Sam almost threw up, and things like that,
and to God for not leaving us as orphans, for restoration, and for making things new.

I actually have a dedication planned out somewhere for my first book. But, this is not a book.
But, man, with acknowledgements like that, this blog better at least be worth reading.
I'll know if it's bad when the people on my thankyou list email and ask to not be associated with it. :)

Thankyou everyone,
for being components of my life.
I very much enjoy it.

10.03.2006

I am disappointed that I failed to post something "yesterday" while it was still Oct. 3rd.
It was an overall friendly day, or at least if nothing else, the numbers were always there to be nice.
bummer. The only 10/03/2006 ever and I missed posting on it.

Oh yeah. Hello 10.04.
I'm sorry, but I just don't trust even numbers as much.
Except for 8.

10/(2*1)/(3*2)

Ok.
I wish I had enough time to post any one of the things I want to.
But I don't.
And I'm only writing this
because I like today's date.

I just want a time stamp with the number in this order.
I don't like the date itself, but the order of the numbers in it.
I will be glad when it's tomorrow, because 10/03/06 is just so much more friendly, especially if you see it with the word October. Oct 03. Doesn't that just look good?

I met a prospie last year. I think his name was Ben. Or Benjamin. I actually don't remember except that it's a yellow name. This is amusing because later on the day I met him, he'd fogotten my name, except that it started with a blue letter (T). He's an awesome Juggler.

Yellow-named guy, I hope I meet you again sometime. I'm sorry if I've forgotten your name. I'm sorry I've forgotten how you taught me to cut cards. I think you'd like Oct 03 2006.

Peace.
The Third is nearly upon us.
And, it's Yom Kippur!

Oh yes. Tomorrow will be a psychologically beautiful day.