cheesin for the cheesecake
I have five stock smiles I choose from when cheesing for a photo. The Euro says I should throw the stock away. Go natural. But the truth is, my eyes are a bit boggly and it takes very little for me to look certifiably insane.
Case in point – my genuine, unfeigned delight as I prepare to tuck into a piece of cheesecake the size of my head. (You may remember, I have a superbly large head.)
I look like someone straight off the ferry from Shutter Island.
hasta la vista. baby.
the anti-inflammation zone. what i’m reading.
Recently, I received this email. It went like this:
B,
Go to the library and get The Anti-Inflammation Zone. Now.
I think this is the most important book I have ever read about health and wellness. I know I say every couple months that I’m going Full-Weil (and I think Dr. Weil’s pyramid is better than this guy’s food plan) but the scientific info is ASTOUNDING. Like, I can’t believe the Surgeon Bloody General isn’t on television talking about this every single day.
Flynn
einstein’s god
There’s not a whole lot one can do with ancient Aramaic or Koine Greek except be Indiana Jones or get a diploma in theology and religion. I wanted the former. I got the latter. I forget why.
My godfather was an Independent Baptist preacher. As a child I spent time in Methodist, Pentecostal and Holiness churches. I went to a Southern Baptist college. During graduate school I attended mass at a Roman Catholic Church because I was so moved by the building itself and the community priest – a Hasidic Jew, raised Scottish Presbyterian, who became Roman Catholic. All of my friends were Jewish or Muslim. They went to Temple and Mosque. I went to Church. I was the only Christian in the lot.
My sister and I, both women of faith, are prone to discussions about native peoples and how often history sees them slaughtered in the name of holy. I think “The Great Divorce” is one of the most thought-provoking pieces of literature ever written. I believe Mark Twain makes a much more convincing atheist than Professor Dawkins. I follow Christ. But the most Christ-Like person I know is a Buddhist. My mother is shocked at this suggestion. The fact remains.
Then, there’s Einstein.
The man who loved Mozart but couldn’t abide socks. Who wore motorcycle jackets and smoked cigars. Who painted fantastically beautiful images of Eternity and the Mystery that surrounds it.
A few years ago Krista Tippett put together the program: “Einstein and the Mind of God”. I’ll just refer you to the piece itself because, like both its namesakes, it’s too complex for someone like me to explain.
Einstein was an extraordinary writer who penned some of the most moving essays and correspondence you’ll ever read. Put aside his theories on space and time and relativity and you see a man who recognized the divine nature of the universe we live in and all the unknown beyond it.
I can believe in an ever expanding universe and the laws that govern it while still being faithful to the Mystery behind it. The more I learn about Eintstein’s God, the clearer I see my own.
the gravedigger’s daughter.
Joyce Carol Oates
I’ve got a story about me and The Gravedigger’s Daughter. And a video, somewhere, of me telling it to her…to Joyce Carol Oates. She probably forgot about it as soon as I told it but it was a wow moment, in the moment. You could see it on her face.
the falls. the falls. the falls.
Something that’s neither here nor there but comes to mind because it comes to mind. Whenever I think of Joyce Carol Oates I always have this image of her running through Hyde Park. Long and lean and listening. Alone, with her internal self. What conversations they must have.
I’ve just finished reading The Falls. And I don’t know what to think of it. I never know what to think of Oates. Her talent is undeniable. The depth of her characters, incredible. She’s real and raw and honest. She doesn’t mollycoddle her readers. Doesn’t seem a fan of happy endings. I think that’s the thing I enjoy most.
Now, to Zombie.
on madness. a writing exercise.
In one way or another, the protagonists of Wise Blood, Lolita, On the Road, Franny and Zooey, and The Crying of Lot 49 all have their sanity called into question, and various abnormal mental states (religious enthusiasm, drug hallucinations, and so forth) potentially compromise their rational faculties. Discuss the theme of madness in one of these novels. How are madness and sanity defined and represented? Is madness a wholly undesirable state? Madness is often connected to a protagonist or seems to be a source of authority. What does it mean to have an authorial voice claim madness?
Essay questions from Yale OpenCourse: The American Novel Since 1945, make for wonderful writing exercises. I’ve got a lot of miles out of this one. Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with the above mentioned novels. Apply the question to something similar that you may have read. Or, use it as a tool to examine a piece of your own writing.
“i wonder what piglet is doing,” thought pooh. “i wish i were there to be doing it, too.”
I don’t take compliments very well. They make me feel all squirmy and uncomfortable. But Flynn doesn’t compliment lightly. Or insincerely.
I received the most touching note from her the other day. And her words made me feel capable. And worthy. I like words like that.
sometimes transliterated ‘dostoevsky’
I look awful. My face is puffy. My eyes are overlarge. My head is terribly unstable. Hubble keeps telling me my speech is slurred. He’s right. The muscles in my throat are tight and uncomfortable. But that’s not it. That’s not the cause of the slurring. I just don’t feel like opening my mouth enough to elocute. I want to roll my tongue in large exaggerated jabberwocky gestures. It loosens up my face.
I use to do this all the time when I was a kid, whenever I was sick. My sister HATED it. She still hates it and tells Hubble he should hate it too. My high school choir teacher called me obnoxious. Once, in college, I had a professor ask if I were on drugs: “Buffy, are you…are you stoned?”
You can sod right on off.
That’s what I wanted to say. It was exactly how I felt and I’ve always found it a fabulous turn of phrase. 
Then he went and gave me a C. I hated those things – Cs. They were average and I was already average enough without them. So, I went back later that week. To explain. I left with an A. I didn’t thank him.
This afternoon I went to bed and slept for three hours. I thought it’d help. The sleep. It didn’t.
Once every five years, my brain explodes. Oozes out my ears. In cold little streams filled with something very hot. I always think ‘this is something Dostoevsky would write’ just before I think ‘how do you transliterate that name’ and ‘how did he ever write at all’. Then I remember how, or think I do. Because now, when that part of my brain that normally sits quiet doesn’t quite sit quiet any more, I do some of my best stuff. I’m not sure that one is at all related to the other. But I know it limbers up my mind. Frees me of all sorts of inhibitions I didn’t know I had. But it leaves me feeling awful. Just, lousy. Really out of sorts.
It’s hard to write when you’re really out of sorts.
I might read poetry. Poetry helps. Spiritual things. Not the deep stuff. Song of Solomon is sometimes nice. I use to be partial to Oswald Chambers. Elizabeth Gilbert is okay too. The Guru scoffs at Gilbert. And that’s fair enough because he is The Guru.
I use to read the New Testament in Koine Greek. Then I admitted, but only to myself, the only reason I did it was because it looked more impressive than reading it in English. Classical trumps Germanic. Any day. I don’t think that way anymore. Anymore, I read Elizabeth Gilbert. Eat, Pray, Love, my darlings. That is all.
