Over a Candle

* Love is not what makes a Subaru a Subaru… the law of identity is what makes a Subaru a Subaru.

* Just because something is hard does not mean it is worthwhile.

* This is the first first day of school I’ve missed in over 33 years.

* You can mean well and try to do the right thing and still screw up badly.

* Tim Roth is fun to watch in any role.

* There are some promises I would like to make… that I cannot make because I don’t know the future.

* Does anyone else find it a little creepy that Oxiclean is still using Billy Mays’ image to sell it’s product?

* Being true to yourself is hard. I hope it’s worthwhile.

* Patience may be a virtue. But that doesn’t mean I have it.

* Sometimes it’s just easier doing what you want instead of what you should.

Editor’s Note: We don’t have an editor! Haven’t you figured that out yet?! Things have been crazy here in crazy town. Most of the things going on are things I have no intention of posting. But I am trying to find something to post about so that you don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, my loyal reader, altogether.

My plans for today, which seems to be just another day on the calendar:

• Walk under a ladder.
• Have a black cat cross my path.
• Spill some salt.
• Break a mirror.
• Say “Beetlejuice” three times out loud.
• Cross the streams.
• Forget to knock on wood.
• Assume Boba Fett is not as smart as I am when I hide in the trash.

Okay, even I think that last one was a stretch. But I haven’t made a reference to the Holy Trilogy in far too long.

My real plans for the day include a little clothes shopping (I need new jeans) and perhaps getting a gorgeous piece of artwork drawn by a good friend indelibly inked onto my skin. If that last one happens, there will be pictures. But I’m not modeling jeans for anyone. Sorry.

Enjoy your Friday on this, the thirteenth day of the month!

The title of this post comes from “Funeral in His Heart” from October Project. The song, a very good one, isn’t terribly relevant to what I’m thinking about tonight. But the lyric has been going through my head anyway. (Loose associations are my bread and butter.)

Let’s review, shall we?

There is a massive oil spill in the Gulf Coast. It’s getting bigger every second. And it’s threatening the coastline, and thus fragile economies, in at least four states. I guarantee this will be ignored by the proponents of off-shore drilling.

A bomb was left in an SUV in Times Square in NYC. The Pakistan Taliban has claimed responsibility. Who knows? Luckily no one was hurt. Not this time. I fully expect this to be used by the hawks to once again abrogate our civil liberties. Perhaps the tea partiers will keep government excess in check. Oh wait… They are only interested in keeping government from helping Americans, not from spying on them.

In Arizona, we have the bizarre notion that we can train people to recognize illegal immigrants without relying on racial profiling. Whatever you think about illegal immigration, the notion that American citizens may have to produce papers to confirm their citizenship is just a bit more worrisome than the government trying to increase health care coverage. But see the last sentence in the previous paragraph.

I’m sure there are more things to be worried about. But frankly, I’m trying to put some of this out of my head. No luck so far.

* Frankly, I think it’s good that we’re getting more research on medicinal uses of psychedelic drugs.

* No snow and 70 degree weather in April is freaky.

* Also, early spring is bad for my health: It encourages more frequent trips to Dairy Queen earlier in the year.

* I never stop being surprised at how many people substitute “common wisdom” for actual thought.

* I thought Tanqueray would always be my favorite gin. Until I found Hendricks.

* A cat, stretched out wanting a belly rub is irresistible.

* Freedom is scary.

* Lack of freedom is oppressive.

* There are many ways to be a jerk; many of them too subtle to be easily detected.

* There are also many ways to hide what is really going on in your head, also difficult to notice.

* Spending the day grading, playing Pokemon, watching the last couple of episodes of Heroes, and eating my homemade nachos is just about the best way to spend Easter I can imagine. Now if only I had caught a Pikachu with Fly in the Yellow Forest. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about… it’s really for the best.)

* Cold Souls may not be the greatest movie of all time, but it wasn’t bad, and certainly better than The Ten Commandments.

* Why is it that one of the major religions in the world still seems to think that human sacrifice makes sense?

* I’m not sure why they play hockey on Easter, but I’m glad they do. Now if Detroit could have only won the game.

* It’s too bad coffee shops aren’t open on major religious holidays.

* Outside of talking about it myself, I didn’t have to deal with any religion today. (More win.)

* Liquid Plumber can apparently vanish without a trace.

* Are they really going to leave Sylar a good guy this time?

* Can I start singing Christmas carols now?

Who am I?

It’s the one question I always come back to.

When I was younger, I thought someone knew. Several someones, to be exact (though not too exact). But they didn’t know. Or knew that I couldn’t hear the answer from them, even if they had it.

For years I gave up asking the question. I simply resigned my identity to the gaping hole… (I want to finish that sentence “where my heart should be,” but then I’m going to have a Duran Duran song stuck in my head. Also, it’s not really correct. I got lost in other stuff and forgot for a while some important things about me. And this search got swept away in that nonsense.)

Periodically, I look to some book or other for the answer. That never works out well. If people who know me personally can’t tell me, an author who has never met me has no chance.

Now that I have rediscovered some more important aspects of myself, I find myself returning to the question. But the tenor of the question is different. Now I’m trying to decide what the answer is rather than discovering it. I determine who I am. And I’m still not sure who I want to be. So there is no answer to the question, not until I pick one.

And I still haven’t picked an answer.

Things that make me go “hmmm”…

* Getting a birthday card from my orthodontist.

* Present causing the most excitement: a new pillow.

* My favorite tradition: that glass of Bushmills Black Bush.

* Eating a third of my birthday cake, by myself. (Admittedly, only 9″ square cake, but still.)

* NPR running a story about why time seems to go faster as you get older and playing the song “Happy Birthday” over and over again. On my birthday.

* My niece informing her mother (my sister) that while she (my sister) was old, at least she wasn’t as old as Uncle Phil.

* Thrilled to have a gift certificate to my local coffee shop: Now I can make it through the first few months of my sabbatical without going broke!

* Wondering if I will ever get tired of new Star Wars stuff.

It was an interesting day. I’m sure I’m missing things, but this covers the bulk of what I needed to get out there.

Today, as I was driving into school, two things happened.

The first was that, as I was driving, a gust of wind kicked up, bringing a lot of snow, making what was already lousy visibility much worse. So bad that I could not see the front of my car. All I could do was stop and hope that no one was behind me. If someone had been behind me, they wouldn’t have seen my car until they were on top of it, literally. Maybe not even then.

After a minute, the gust died down and I could see again. As I continued driving, the second thing happened: I heard the text message alert on my phone. When I could stop to check, I was unsurprised to find that classes had been cancelled. I wish they had been cancelled before I left home, but I was glad that no more students would try to drive in. I really wish, though, they had been cancelled before Ronni (and others) had driven into work.

Ah well, I returned home and got to work. Ronni made it back safely, too.

I did some school work and then got busy making another batch of pasties. These would be for lunches this week, rather than dinner tonight. I liked the idea of keeping them around for lunches so much, and had the ingredients for another batch, so I made them again. This time, I took pictures:

I made a couple of alterations. First, instead of trying to cut out the dough, I simply divided it into eights and rolled out each into roughly a circular shape. That accomplished two things. First, the size was closer to what I wanted for a lunch meal. Second, the dough gets stiffer every time you have to reroll it, so this way I only had to roll out each bit of dough once. Also, I don’t have anything about 6-8 inches to use to cut out the dough, anyway.

The other alteration was to use some of Ronni’s soy milk in place of the egg wash. I didn’t use an egg wash the first time I made the recipe. I think they turned out a little dry and didn’t brown up much. You can see that they browned nicely this time. Also, using a little soy milk on the edge of the circle, before crimping it closed, helps seal the pastry a bit better.

I haven’t tried them yet, but they look and smell delicious. Now I can’t wait for lunch tomorrow.

And now for the “random” part of the post… Last Tuesday, I took a picture of the hoar frost that covered the trees that day. I wish I had gotten a picture later in the day when the sky turned blue. The frost looks even better against the blue sky. This is still pretty, though. Enjoy!

* Does Brit Hume really believe that telling Tiger Woods to convert to Christianity doesn’t count as proselytizing?

* Am I the only person in the world who thinks all six episodes of the Star Wars trilogy are fun?

* Despite all attempts, syllabi do not write themselves.

* Neither do weird random lists.

* I heard today that this is the year of the “Angry, White, Male Voter… again.” Through my yawn, all I could think of was, who cares?

* Despite some suggestions on this very blog to the contrary, I rarely get angry about politics. I expect little from politicians, and I am rarely disappointed. I do, however, get very angry at stupidity. And hypocrisy. Though the former makes me more angry than the latter.

* It’s good to be getting back into the rhythm of being home. It’s even better to be getting back into the rhythm of Dragon Age.

* There should really be more zero calorie beverages in the world. Especially zero calorie alcoholic beverages. That taste good.

* I’m all for tossing incumbents out of office. It’s my general preference during elections. However, I would like some indication of how the replacement is going to make some positive changes. And not be a complete partisan hack.

* Despite all my cynicism, I secretly suspect I’m one of the most optimistic and naive persons I know.

* Most days, I look at all the work I have and wonder how it will all get done. Then, a year has gone by, and it all got done. And I can’t help but wonder, who did it?

* I’m pretty sure there is a deep identity question buried in that last thought. It was, I assure you, purely accidental.

* I hope the iPhone is available in my area soon. I don’t know how much longer my current phone will hold out.

* How does a massive early winter storm miss us by going SOUTH?

* Is it possible to spend too much on a mattress?

* Why do I waste so much time playing Bejeweled Blitz when I could be playing Dragon Age?

* Is Bruce Wayne really dead?

* Why does Hilary Putnam follow me around?

* At what point does honesty become a bad thing?

* Why is it okay to hate Barack Obama but it wasn’t okay to hate George W. Bush?

* Has the whole war on Christmas ended?

* If so, who won?