|
|
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
| |
9:03 am - 37 things
|
I haven't been using this journal much anymore, but until I again become inspired to write publically, here is my birthday list with 37 random facts about me for my 37 years. This is my 3rd such list in 3 years, so hopefully I haven't started repeating myself yet...
( 37 things... )
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Monday, March 5th, 2007
| |
2:33 pm - It's that time of year again...
|
My birthday was Saturday, so in keeping with the tradition I started last year, I'm posting one random bit of information about myself for each year of age...
Thirty-six Things About Me
1. I'm a pathological procrastinator.
2. I drank goat's milk all through my teen years.
3. I have a crooked toe that I thought was due to an injury until my son was born with the same bend in the same knuckle.
4. My earliest career aspiration was to be a preacher.
5. My second career aspiration was to be a nurse.
6. My first crush was in the 2nd grade.
7. I started wearing glasses in the 2nd grade.
8. I have owned a blue leather baseball mitt and a bible with a blue leather cover.
9. I got my first leather jacket for my 16th birthday, and it was purple.
10. My playhouse as a child was a log cabin built by my dad.
11. My earliest memory is of eating chocolate doughtnuts when I was 2.
12. I have a G.E.D.
13. I earn more than many people I know who have college degrees.
14. I get very irritated if interrupted while singing or playing a song.
15. I find it more difficult to resist starchy, savory foods than sweets.
16. In the last year, I've learned to function on only 5 or 6 hours of sleep.
17. I am terrified of becoming a grandmother before I turn 40.
18. I have a benign, non-Parkinson's tremor that makes people nervous.
19. I like to say that I was hatched from an egg.
20. I voted for Ralph Nader. Once.
21. Spring and autumn are my favorite seasons.
22. Drizzling Seattle days sometimes make me feel very happy.
23. I wish I could have met Eleanor Roosevelt.
24. I didn't fly on an airplane until I was 17.
25. It's quite possible that I have the worst-selling Mary Magdalene book on earth but I'm still happy with the achievement.
26. Since reading a poem by Amy Lowell, I've found everything about freshly-baked bread to be very sensual. [*side note: after coming up with this list I cleaned out some boxes in the closet. I came across an envelope on which I had scrawled Amy Lowell's name, which I had been trying to find for nearly a year after reading some poems by her. Synchronicity!]
27. In my mind, Sunday mornings are highly idealized.
28. Before I became pregnant with my eldest son 16 years ago, I was always underweight.
29. I once had colorful, braided hair extensions.
30. I've been to New York three times, not counting drives through.
31. I don't have a passport.
32. There have been moments when I've loved my chiropractor more than anyone else on earth.
33. I have no piercings other than the three in my ears (two on the left, one on the right), but I still occasionally think about getting more.
34. I wear a size 8.5 shoe.
35. I have been fascinated by dreams as psychological phenomena since my early 20's.
36. I feel less spiritual now than I ever have during my life. This is not necessarily a negative thing. It just is.
current mood: old
|
|
(7 comments |comment on this)
|
| Monday, August 14th, 2006
| |
9:20 am - "Here's me..."
|
I had to borrow a Zinn phrase for the subject line. When he hides and then jumps out to surprise us, he yells, "here's me!!!" In some ways I'm dreading the day when he uses grammatically correct English.
So yes, here I am. Obviously I haven't had much of an interest in posting on LJ lately. As a matter of fact, I haven't been posting in my blog or making any updates to Magdalene.org, either. To put it quite simply, I'm sick of it all.
My devotion to Mary Magdalene started out as just that: a devotion. Somewhere along the line she turned into a community pursuit, and then a subject of historical research, and then an idea to be defended. After The Da Vinci Code, she became a commercial opportunity.
At this point, I've just gotten tired of all of the controversy, tired of being criticized for my disagreement with people who insist on revising history, tired of defending rational thought, tired of arguing with crazies who point a finger at me simply because I'm visible.
I'm going to give up my blog, and yesterday, I ordered a domain name appraisal for Magdalene.org.
I haven't committed to anything yet, but honestly, at this point, I would rather be an anonymous devotee than a public target. The benefit just isn't there for me anymore, and I feel like I've lost touch with the original impulse behind my devotion. That is what is important to me. I've spent nine years of my life on Mary Magdalene, and now it's time to move on.
current mood:  restless
|
|
(12 comments |comment on this)
|
| Friday, May 5th, 2006
| |
10:12 am - R-E-L-I-E-F
|
I just turned in a total rewrite of my personal stories piece. Given that the book drop-dead date is next Friday, this was a kind of risky move on my part. Hopefully, my editors will like it better than the original and it will only require minor edits after this.
Aside from worrying about how it will be received, I'm extremely happy to be |<-this close->| to being done with this project. Because I finished it last night, there is a chance that Chris and Zinn and I will get to go out and do something fun tonight after work while the weather is still nice.
In other news, I have at least two new project ideas brewing. It seems that I just can't help myself. I must be one of those people who can't cope with life unless I have way too much to do at any given time.
current mood:  accomplished
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Thursday, May 4th, 2006
| |
10:00 am - World record breastfeeding
|
In case that I haven't made it known where I stand on this issue, breast is best!
The cream of the crop in breastfeeding coup
I resent the tone of this article just a little bit, but still, I'm proud of what these women are doing!
Human babies need human milk!
current mood: solidarity
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, April 11th, 2006
| |
11:31 am - Essays for book
|
I'm all done writing my three articles for the Burstein book. Well, the initial writing, that is. Now that I've turned them all in, I have some rewriting to do on the popular culture piece, and I'm still waiting to hear the verdict on the personal stories piece.
From my perspective, the personal stories piece was much better written than the pop culture article. I had a difficult time inserting any commentary into the pop culture piece because it interfered with my ability to include song lyric examples and that sort of thing within the word limit. After talking with my editors yesterday, I'm going to approach it in a new way, with the emphasis being on commentary rather than cataloging as many cool examples as possible. Hopefully that will yield a more readable and distinctive article.
One of my editors' comments was that the piece lacked my voice. Going to sleep last night, I pondered this. In a way, although I've been writing since childhood with the intention of writing books as an adult, I feel that I still struggle with the "me" that I convey with my writing. My voice changes with my mood, with what's on my mind, with the depth of interest I have in the piece. It's a little like handwriting; ever notice how different your handwriting is in different situations? It's always yours, but maybe there are times when a third party wouldn't be able to identify two samples as coming from the same person.
Chris often says that my writing is much too formal and scholarly. Some of this stems from my desire to be taken seriously; I find it difficult to be concise and opt to include far more information than is probably necessary. I've come to a point though where I would really like to improve my ability to communicate effectively as well as thoroughly. One of the things I've learned in the last couple of years is that the two things aren't synonymous.
current mood:  thoughtful
|
|
(3 comments |comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, March 29th, 2006
| |
4:41 pm - Heehee...
|
Satire, folks! I have nothing against men. I have something against institutions that have something against women...
(Snagged from The Lesser of Two Weevils.)
Top Ten Reasons Why Men Should Not Be Ordained
10. A man's place is in the army.
9. For men who have children, their duties might distract them from the responsibilities of being a parent.
8. Their physical build indicates that men are more suited to tasks such as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be "unnatural" for them to do other forms of work.
7. Man was created before woman. It is therefore obvious that man was a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment, rather than the crowning achievement of creation.
6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. This is easily demonstrated by their conduct at football games and watching basketball tournaments.
5. Some men are handsome; they will distract women worshipers.
4. To be ordained pastor is to nurture the congregation. But this is not a traditional male role. Rather, throughout history, women have been considered to be not only more skilled than men at nurturing, but also more frequently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.
3. Men are overly prone to violence. No really manly man wants to settle disputes by any means other than by fighting about it. Thus, they would be poor role models, as well as being dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.
2. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep paths, repair the church roof, and maybe even lead the singing on Father's Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the Church.
1. In the New Testament account, the person who betrayed Jesus was a man. Thus, his lack of faith and ensuing punishment stands as a symbol of the subordinated position that all men should take.
current mood:  amused
|
|
(1 comment |comment on this)
|
| Friday, March 10th, 2006
| |
3:01 pm - Dream of the Book
|
I had this dream a few weeks ago:
"Logos"
I am holding a book. It is a large, leather-bound thing with parchment pages, very medieval, but not elaborate. It is open, and I look more closely at the pages. The text is in a language I don't remember, in black calligraphy. The drop caps look like they are done in a metallic leaf, but instead of gold, they are a deep, rich, shining cobalt blue. There is some kind of illuminated border around the text.
As I gaze at these pages of the book, I am overcome by its exquisite beauty and begin to weep. I feel that I am in the presence of God.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, March 8th, 2006
| |
1:44 pm - Current projects
|
-- I finished my first piece that I've been asked to contribute to the book I mentioned. It's an annotated Mary Magdalene book list with 22 titles on it. Waiting for editorial comments.
-- I've been watching movies that feature MM characters in order to attack my next piece, on MM in popular culture. There are a number of films I've never seen (such as Cecile B. Demille's King of Kings) that should be included.
-- Several people have responded to my request for interviews about personal experiences with MM. I need to follow up with everyone and decide which stories I'd like to include, and how the "personal stories" piece will be formatted.
The above are my paid projects. Although I find them interesting, my unpaid projects are the ones that truly engage my attention.
-- I've been collecting material related to the old Syriac Christian tradition of replacing MM with the Virgin as the first witness of the resurrection. For some reason I find the literature and images in this tradition deeply beautiful and slightly haunting.
-- The Virgin/MM conflation material is an offshoot of a project I've been working on for more than a year, in which I've been gathering evidence that the epithet "Magdalene" didn't originally appear in one portion of the Gospel of John. I think I have all of the evidence that I need to mold an article or short book on the subject. Now I just need to decide what kind of background information I need to provide in order to argue my point.
-- Encyclopedia Magdalena is languishing, and I'd like to get back to writing entries.
-- I would like to do a rough translation of Hippolytus' commentary on Song of Songs into English. The only translation from the Greek that I know of is into German, from almost a century ago. Although I'm picking up some Greek here and there, I think it will still be easier for me to do a translation from the German. It's secondary, but at least it will be something.
current mood:  productive
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Friday, March 3rd, 2006
| |
10:27 am - 35 things
|
Today is my 35th birthday.
If I live to the age of 70, I will consider myself lucky. Since I don't really expect to live past that age, as far as I'm concerned, today represents my halfway point in life. To mark the occasion, I've decided to list 35 more-or-less random things about my first 35 years:
( I have... )
current mood: reflective
|
|
(5 comments |comment on this)
|
| Monday, February 13th, 2006
| |
1:30 pm - Rocking good news
|
I've been invited to contribute three separate pieces to Dan Burstein's upcoming book, The Secrets of Mary Magdalene. The subjects they'd like me to cover are related to Mary Magdalene in popular culture, which although interesting, is not quite what I would have proposed. It looks like the area I wanted to write about is being covered by someone else though, so at least it is being addressed. I can't bring myself to be disappointed about the invitation in any respect though; it's an incredible opportunity.
Biggest downside: all pieces are due by April 1.
Biggest upside: the book will probably be a bestseller with or without my contribution.
In other news, I have a full-time job interview on Wednesday. Hopefully there is enough positive juju or pixie dust or whatever brings good fortune floating around to help me land that as well.
current mood:  ecstatic
current music: "Heidi," from Ruby's "Salt peter" album
|
|
(9 comments |comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, February 8th, 2006
| |
8:30 pm - I've been Half Priced!
|
Tonight was the first time I saw a copy of my book on the shelf at Half Price Books. I thumbed through it to see if it was a signed copy, since there are so few out there, and it actually was! It was a copy I had signed for someone who attended the talk I gave at Quest Books last year.
LOL...maybe he was upset that I never added a link to his site from Magdalene.org.
In other news, there's an awesome MM article in The New Yorker this week:
The Saintly Sinner
current mood:  busy
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, February 1st, 2006
| |
9:39 am - Woman With The Wild Thing's Heart: Part 1 of 4
|
The first installment of the Irish radio show for which I was interviewed is now available online.
Woman With The Wild Thing's Heart: "What's in a name?"
You need RealPlayer to listen to this file type, unfortunately.
Two clips of my interview were included; one where I spoke about the origin of the name "Magdalene" and one where I talked about Pope Gregory the Great's homily from 591.
The show itself is very good, and is very interesting for an Irish perspective on Mary Magdalene. Ireland, of course, is now known to be the place of the famous "Magdalene Laundries," institutions where "licentious" and otherwise troubled girls were sent for what amounted to prison sentences. The Irish experts are fantastic, and they even interviewed Susan Haskins for the show as well. So it's well worth a listen!
|
|
(4 comments |comment on this)
|
| |
9:35 am - This is something that would happen to me...
|
|
| Friday, January 13th, 2006
| |
11:30 am - Radio Ireland
|
This morning was my interview for the RTE radio series on Mary Magdalene. I spent an hour and a half in the KUOW studio in Seattle talking with Gerry McArdle, who is putting together the series. It seemed to go well, I had had a chance to prepare my responses ahead of time, so hopefully it will come off halfway intelligent. Gerry is putting together the show a little like the television documentaries that we see on the history channel, with a narrative woven together with talking head segments. I'm going to be a talking head. I'm hoping that at least some of the material from my interview will be useful and that I'll end up being included in the final product.
The coolest thing of all was the praise Gerry had for my book. He told me that he wished he had found my book earlier on in his research because it ended up being instrumental in putting together the series. Indeed, his list of interview questions for all of the participants had many items that appeared to be taken directly from my book. That's pretty satisfying. :-)
I'll post more when I find out the date it will air. Maybe it will be streamed online too.
current mood:  content
|
|
(3 comments |comment on this)
|
| Saturday, December 31st, 2005
| |
5:07 pm - Outrage
|
Ganked from Father Jordan Stratford:
"FORBIDDEN VACCINE Ever year, about 500,000 women throughout the world develop cervical cancer. In the United States alone, the disease kills about 3,700 women annually. This year, scientists developed a vaccine against human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted disease that is the primary cause of cervical cancer. The vaccine produced 100 percent immunity in the 6,000 women who received it as part of a multinational trial. As soon as the vaccine is licensed, some health officials say, it should be administered to all girls at age 12. But the Family Research Council and other social conservative groups vowed to fight that plan, even though it could virtually eliminate cervical cancer. Vaccinating girls against a sexually transmitted disease, they say, would reduce their incentive to abstain from premarital sex."
From a NY Times Op-Ed piece by William Falk, "While You Were Sleeping".
Why don't we just do away with penicillin too while we're at it?
current mood:  angry
|
|
(2 comments |comment on this)
|
| Monday, December 5th, 2005
| |
11:24 am - Blogging props
|
I've been blogging for just over a week, and in addition to some very kind words from friends, I've already managed to garner a little bit of attention from real biblical scholars whose work I respect and admire. This is a much better response than I could have hoped for and makes me very happy. For so long I've been slogging through the posts on my email list, feeling like I'm always the wet blanket, the person who always responds negatively to everything. Either that or that I just don't have anything in common with folks there. So starting The Magdalene Review was, in part, a way I saw to discuss the kinds of things I want to discuss in the way I want to discuss them. That other people whose opinions I respect find my posts interesting is a bonus.
There has been a bit of a controversy in the blogosphere lately over something called "biblioblogging," which is, basically, the practice of blogging about Biblical studies. This is something that was going on before last week when I came online. Part of the controversy is that there are very few female bibliobloggers. In a post about the whole matter, I am paid a compliment:
Perhaps one reason it's not so much of a problem with me is because of Lese Bellevie's Magdalene Review blog (link above) and classicist Glaukopides blog which I read with the same regularity as the rest on my blog roll. They're living proof that blogs can be kept consistently academic-related and by females at once. I just wanted to share the goodness. This comment pretty much made my year.
current mood:  enthralled
|
|
(8 comments |comment on this)
|
| Sunday, November 27th, 2005
| |
11:13 pm - My new blog
|
This is LJ. It's about me, and my life. It's a continuation of my long-running online commentary about whatever happens to pop into my head.
I've wanted to do a Mary Magdalene blog for awhile now, so I finally got it set up this weekend:
The Magdalene Review
Yet one more way to spend my non-existent free time.
|
|
(1 comment |comment on this)
|
| Sunday, November 20th, 2005
| |
1:00 am - Magdalene interview
|
|
| Friday, November 4th, 2005
| |
3:06 pm - It seems it was inevitable...
|
|
|
|
|
|
satisfied